Comment by wiseowise
2 months ago
That’s common thought process: “tool that I use more than 10 times a day to amplify my knowledge? $10 a month? Eye watering!”.
Oh well, time to grab that Uber eats for $20 third time this week.
2 months ago
That’s common thought process: “tool that I use more than 10 times a day to amplify my knowledge? $10 a month? Eye watering!”.
Oh well, time to grab that Uber eats for $20 third time this week.
People are really bad with quantifying things.
I can easily grab a few imperial stouts for the weekend for 20€ but will balk at paying for a search engine.
Until I did the math of use per euro and Kagi turned out to be well worth it. I just drink one beer less a month and it's paid for and I'm healthier too =)
The problem is that some things remain cheap by convention. Once you employ the above logic and show a willingness to pay for things, the rent-seekers will swoop in.
You can't break an imperial stout into parts and charge for each, and natural competition exist in supermarkets and/or even homebrew, limiting how much pubs/bars will charge.
The same is not true for computer service that can very easily become monopolised.
The addendum to "If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product", is "and if you are paying for the product, you are also still the product".
I think the rise of take-away services corresponds with a working professional middle-class for whom time spent cooking isn't worth the hourly rate of otherwise staying at work. Home cooking, or even eating out is still a much better proposition if you can afford the time.
I think professional tooling falls in the same category, but the problem I have is treating a general internet service such as a serach engine, or even an online encyclopedia as if it is also in the same category, where as I see it as a common utility, more akin to the availability of a library.