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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arcane Runes Press" data-source="post: 169259" data-attributes="member: 402">Re: Re: Re: Re: buying from Amazon.com (And packing my bong)Because people like to bitch, no matter what the price of something is. If every book was 10$, there would be people who would complain that they weren't 9$. I used to work at a music store that sold CD and cassette singles, most with 2-3 songs for $1.99. Many kids who couldn't afford the full CD bought them, but others, even obviously well off adults, still bitched about the price. When we would cycle out the old singles (after about 1-2 months) for $.99, people would buy them literally by the handful, but there was STILL a small, but vocal, group of people that bitched about the price.  You can see it online. Malhavoc's Book of Eldritch Magic is 5$, hardly more than a Big Mac meal, but you can still find it on PtP, right alongside the "too expensive" FRCS. Obviously, there are people who aren't willing to part with their money no matter how inexpensive the product. You can see it in other luxury industries too. People complain about movie ticket prices, but total box office goes up, up, up each year, despite the heavy competition of DVD and first run cable stations. At the heart of it, there's simply no such thing as too expensive of a luxury item. Luxury items are, by their nature, unneccessary purchases at any price. There's such a thing as  too expensive for you, but that is hardly the same thing. It is the right and responsibilty of each customer to determine for himself what his cost threshold is. The average consumer is not concerned with how much the majority will pay, only what HE will pay. In other words, the CONSUMER IS SELFISH. That is how he (or she) protects his own interests. Meanwhile, the business MUST do the opposite. It MUST be concerned with the threshold of its chosen consumer base as a whole, not on a case by case basis. It is the right and responsibility of the business to charge the limit of what the majority of its chosen market will bear, while providing that market with a quality product. The business is not concerned with what you will pay, only what the MAJORITY will pay. In other words, the BUSINESS IS SELFISH. That is how it protects its own interests. For example: my cable costs $39.99 a month, which is WAY TOO MUCH in my opinion, but I still pay the bill each month, since I love the History channel too much to let it go. At the same time, I refuse to pay $69.99 for digital cable, even though I desperately want many of the channels offered. 70$ is simply beyond my threshold. I am exercising my rights as a consumer by choosing not to pay what they want. IF digital was $49.99, I would part with the extra cash. As it stands, however, my cable company is never going to sell it for $49.99, since the base of customers willing to pay $69.99 is obviously large enough to justify the price.  My cable company is exercising its rights as a company.  Now, if my cable company found that there was a huge base of consumers who would pay $49.99 for digital cable, they WOULD drop the price, but only if the sheer volume of customers made up for the 20$ drop. That's good business sense. If they dropped the price simply so that more people could have digital cable and took a big hit in profits because of it, that's bad business sense. Whew! I think this might just be my longest post ever!Patrick Y.</blockquote>

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