Opensource Price Guide!

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

I have come to a conclusion that the problem with the cottage business industry is uncontrolled prices. Do you know how baseball price guide’s control the prices of cards? The same thing could be done with things such as 3D models, 2D digital artwork, new paintings, and also handi man work such as installing a window.

Lots of the things in the global opensource price guide would demand region specific prices. It would also require are large opensource team.

Things like the price per hour and job for programming. And also the price per job and hour for 3d models. It could have a quality control price scale.

It might make it possible for a person to earn a living spinning yarn, and yet another person earn a living knitting blankets.

The purpose of trade is to allow everyone to get their fair share of the resources of the village, and not have a large factory take everything.

#2

Just wondering, how do you think prices work?

Businesses are not charities and are not of the government, that means they have to make a profit. If they don’t, they can’t pay expenses ranging from labor to utilities and the end result is no one gets anything.

Do some businesses go crazy with the profit margins, yes indeed, but it’s inaccurate to paint everyone selling something with a sweeping generalization such as this.

On the idea of a price guide itself, the idea that it will control prices is a pipe-dream unless it respected the business’ right to make a profit and it reached to millions more people than just those in this forum.

#4

Nothing wrong with a Free Choice. Usually a problem is in the one suggesting the value of a product/work.

#5

the prices could be based on the raw material. While the price guide would not price everything, such as the items seen in walmart it. It could price things such as wool products. The base price for raw wool based on raising the sheep. Plus the price of the wool after spinning, based on the time it takes spinning wool. Then the price of the blanket, based on the amount of wool used. All of it taking into count profit, for the sake of earning a living from a cottage business.

Not everything would be advised on a price. Things like usb devices, cpu processors would be excluded from the price guide. And it would be advised that factory prices cannot be judged by the price guide, only cottage business prices, which might be different according to region.

The prices for afgahn blankets for example, are way below the cost of yarn. These are hand made items. Naturally, one cannot compete with factories, as they get previliggest prices.

(EDIT) And this would work for 3d models or digital artwork. One problem artist have with selling their work is people who sell an 8 hour job for a buck. This would not happen anymore, because there would be a price guide to give *advise on a price.

#6

Factory-made items always have an advantage because…

  1. The raw material is always bought in bulk, whoever sells the material can still make a lot of money even though the margins are very thin.
  2. Factories contain millions of dollars worth of various automation technology that can dramatically lower the cost of making a product. Besides that, I don’t know of very many artists who produce their art or 3D models in factories, so the comparison is a bit of a stretch.

To conclude, forcing major companies to raise the prices of products that could “otherwise” be hand-made is the wrong approach, this is called tampering with the market and it almost always produces consequences you don’t expect (for both businesses and consumers).

#8

When dealing with a flawed system that is a throw back from the industrial age and owned by entrenched capital, you can choose how you spend your money. I buy my cigarettes, cheap baiju and other daily provisions from the aiyi on the corner. We chat in broken Chinese about days gone by and I pay her inflated prices, hoping she makes rent and has a bit left over to spoil her grandchildren…

#9

I get the intention but not the solution: art is one of the most nightmarish areas to price fairly because the end result is always somehow unique.

It would be intresting to have a reference price table for some services, but every single time some category establishes one, rookies and people desperate for cash will disrespect it somehow. (Just look at fiver)

#10

You can also try your hand at jacking up your art prices to insane levels while marketing them to rich people with no sense. It’s possible to see art that looks like it was made in 5 minutes sold at ultra-high prices. If you end up succeeding, then think about the blending machine of your dreams while signing up for the development fund’s diamond tier.

Many years back, I looked around a local art gallery where some of the paintings on sale were a bunch of painted rectangles packed together on a canvas, the going price was over 500 bucks. Makes the Blender work I sell for 20 look like Dollar Store items.

#11

Selling a canvas that you painted pure black, or selling a white canvas with one single mark on it for huge amounts of money really only works for people who are well known in the art industry. They can sell such a painting like this, because their painting really is worth that much, only because of their name. Someone who is unknown however, this painting has no value.

#12

and that’s the part that kills the purpose: you’re selling the artist name, history, knowledge and skills as much as you’re selling the work itself. Even unused skills can put the price higher.

It’s hard to imagine a 100% “fair” way of pricing artistic jobs

#13

what is fair and who gets to decide what’s fair for the rest of us ?

Fun Fact: Making a price high makes the product more likely to be bought because people assume it will be something worthy, however making the product the price of peanuts makes even more money to the level of insanity, example given Steam Sales among many other examples. Buying games one may never actually play because of “why not” mentality.

Conclusion: People do not like “fair prices”.

There is no pricing guide , it depends on the market.

We were told when the iPhone came out , that only rich people would be able to afford it, almost everyone apparently could afford its high price. Now expensive phones is the new cheap. Understanding what the market want is where the game is played.

You can even sell vaporware these days, for example Star Citizen which was vaporware till its day of its supposed release 5 years after the money started to flow in. Did not stop Roberts , its creator, from gathering a few tens of millions to get him started and still collecting, although now the game is real and to an extend playable. He knew how to sell it even way before it came out and keep people trusting him although he failed again and again to deliver something tangible.

Money is an illusion as much the power it suppose to offer. In the end its nothing more than a collection of personal logically flawed opinions.

#14

I understood what you mean by “money is an illusion”. To me, it really is a vanity. I only just need enough to pay bills and eat healthy. Really don’t need more than this, really no point in it. Life is very short.

#15

I can relate to that, I like a somewhat luxurious life but I can live with not much money as well. Money can be also a great good if invested in good places like Blender :wink: and libre software in general. Or of course other good deeds.