Just like prescription medications which cost six cents a pill to make and sell for $700 for 30...I wouldn't draw any parallels with power cords, though. According to this article in Forbes research and development expenditures by a dozen major drug producers, from 1997 to 2011, divided by the number of their drugs that were ultimately approved and brought to market ranged from $3.7 to $11.8 billion dollars per approved drug. Regards, -- Al |
Al, You're absolutely correct concerning the very high cost of pharmaceutical development, testing, trials and finally FDA approval. Contrary to popular myth it's a very long and very costly process. Sometimes companies don't recoup their investments. There are losers as well as winners in this process. Charles |
the concept of diminishing returns ia very subjective and an economic assessment. i don't think a mercedes is worth $50,000, while some car buyers probably do. the notion that a $1000 power cord does not provide twice the performance as a $500 one is a moot point. each listener makes the assessment as to what a product is worth relative to another. disagreements are likely to occur. thus the concept of diminishing returns is not applicable to an aesthetic medium. it is useful where objective measurement is possible, such as in a production environment. this term was originally applied in micro economics. it is debatable whether it has any usefulness in audio. |
