Re: people, places, things, and ideas

Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Wed, 6 Jan 1999 20:28:22 -0500 (EST)


> Market friction currently makes selling
> software a viable business model. Perhaps branding does, too; there's
> a question as to whether Red Hat sells CDs for $50 because people like
> Red Hat's brand, or just because they don't know they can buy
> essentially the same CD from CheapBytes for $2.

... or because they find RedHat's installation support valuable, or
because they like getting a printed manual, or because they want to
spend a relatively small sum of money in support of further development,
or ...

The notion that people always minimize their immediate costs (with
cost measured in financial terms) is one of the major fallacies
underlying most modern economics. It's just not true, and in some
domains it isn't close to true. (What's the value of time spent in
church?)

rst