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How Much Are You Paying For Electronics Labels?
An anonymous reader writes "Interesting article on CNET about different consumer electronics brands selling identical OEM products, often at wildly different price points. The author also examines the phenomenon of manufacturers releasing "consumer" and "industrial" versions of the same product -- with the cheaper version aimed at businesses. Probably old news for the slashdot crowd, but it's worth reading to see how much Middle America is overpaying. Caveat emptor, indeed." And there are also product lines where the expensive version is aimed at business buyers, because a higher price implies greater credibility.
Perhaps I misunderstand what the original poster was suggesting, but the idea of "charge consumers the maximum they are willing to pay" doesn't strike me as terribly fair either. There are some things that the maximum they are willing to pay is however much it costs until they simply can't afford it. Health insurance, gasoline, etc... I'm sure you've bitched about the prices-- but do you ever exercise your capitalistic right to simply not buy the overpriced product? Of course not-- you can't. (Unless you've got handy mass transit, which is beyond rare in the US)
I'm not suggesting any sort of central fixed price system, only that if a company is found to be charging far more (say, triple) than it actually costs to make, sell, and deliver their product, then they should be in trouble.
Explain to me how the buyer has any influence in the decision to apply a "reasonable" price to gasoline under the current system.
In most parts of the US, there is a certain minimum amount of fuel that people have to buy each week just to get to their job and the grocery store. If you have mass transit (lucky you!) or are willing to bike (I do the 20-mile commute by bike when the weather is nice) you can avoid some of it-- but even assuming the most fuel-efficient car available, you still have to buy some quantity of gas all the time. How much you buy doesn't depend at all on how much it costs. Gas goes way up? You keep buying.