Anyone have experience with the Nanotec Nespa?

02-12-06: Onhwy61
If the product works as claimed and the price is exorbitant, then market forces will drive the price down as competing, lower priced copies enter the marketplace.

True, in the development of most products.

However, it appears that in the case of the RealityCheck CD burner, an existing CD burner was co-opted and marketed at an exhorbitant mark-up. This is in contrast to the market forces argument, and the crux of the debate currently surrounding the RealityCheck CD burner.

Tvad. you missed my point. Innovation takes genius and money. As technology evolves, some will see it potential in new areas and take it there in the hope of making money as after all we are a capitalist system. They will set a price for their new product and make it available. If it does not sell, they lose. If it does, others will seek to benefit from the break through by improving on it or by cost cutting, such as making it in China.

The notion that you continue to propound, "exorbitant mark-up" is just sales rhetoric for those seeking to undercut the innovator's price as well as non-capitalist critics mimicking Lenin's notion of intrinsic worth.

We still do not know if the look alike burner is the equal of the RealityCheck burner nor whether the look alike cdrs are the same as the RC cdrs, but I suspect that many will try the cheaper versions as well they should.

My other point was that even if Louis merely repackages the burner and cdrs, before the internet this would never have been discovered. As such, the internet may discourage innovations or certainly make their shelf life much shorter. Those with access to cheaper overseas labor may be the only ones with the true potential to innovate, safe with the realization that their secrets can be kept.

The notion that you continue to propound, "exorbitant mark-up" is just sales rhetoric for those seeking to undercut the innovator's price as well as non-capitalist critics mimicking Lenin's notion of intrinsic worth.

I see your point more clearly, Tbg, but you misunderstand my point as well with this statement. I do not believe Mr. Louis was the innovator of a new burner. I believe he purchased burners identical to the IO Shop burners and re-sold them without doing a thing to them. Believe me, CD duplicators existed long before Mr. Louis' product. He himself says in one of his Positive Feedback replies that the burners he uses are sourced from Alesis, among other manufacturers. The next clue to indicate that he doesn't do anything to the burners is his firmware mea culpa on AA. Therefore, I do not believe this is a case of an innovator's product being copied and sold at a lower price. His appears to be a case of someone taking an off-the-shelf item and re-selling it at a 150% mark-up. That's exorbitant.

The same exorbitant mark-up applies to the black CDRs that are available for $30/100 that he re-sells fo $100.

His innovation would seem to be the packaging of a good quality burner, excellent quality black CDRs, and some mystery fluid. I'll give him credit for discovering the recipe for the package, but until he offers some proof of his technical innovation, or the patent for which he claims to have applied, he remains no more than a re-packager, and is deserving of the attention he is getting.

I'm all for innovation. I love innovation. True innovation that's verifiable. Not pseudo-innovation that's cloaked in mystery, ambiguity and double speak.

Tvad, the free market is a continuous process. At any given point in time sub-markets may exist where supply and demand are not in balance. Think of the plywood market in the Gulf coast a few days before a major hurricane. The audiophile market is also a sub-market with its own barriers of entry. The lack of perfect information flow, despite the internet, can allow someone to market a generic product from one market as a custom made product in another. This is probably what happened with the CD burner. In the long run (just before we're all dead), market forces will drive the so-called custom product down to the price of the generic version. It doesn't happen over night, but I imagine George Louis cancelled his IPO plans.

Tbg, have you been reading Ayn Rand lately? Innovation rarely is the work of genius, it is more commonly the product of hard work, persistence, luck and a lot more hard work. Free markets don't work without the flow of information. To say the internet, a universally available channel for the quick dissemination of info, may inhibit innovation is a gross misreading of basic economic theory.

The lack of perfect information flow, despite the internet, can allow someone to market a generic product from one market as a custom made product in another. This is probably what happened with the CD burner.

I wholeheartedly agree, Onhwy61, and I suspect it explains the Nanotec Nespa, too.