If someone can afford a product, but isn't willing to, then they should look elsewhere for the value provided by the product, or live without it.

That's embedded in the definition of a market--sellers get to choose the price, buyers get to choose whether or not to buy.

Actually a market is a place to negotiate prices. Seller-fixed prices are an American curiosity.

The act of negotiation itself is a cost/fee that people would rather avoid - and for small purchases the need to negotiate is more costly than the actual product price.

Lack of negotiation isn't a curiosity, it reduces friction of transactions - see item, point at it, give the money, you're done; which saves effort for both parties.

Fair enough. But even in negotiated transactions, the seller sets the final price that they will or won't accept.

In a fixed market the fixed price still remains the upper bound for the negotiation. [Until there are more demands outside of the predetermined terms]

Exactly like the buyer.

only in a "free-"market. Also there is a concept of "fair price" for a reason. You can't charge insane prices everywhere, especially for essential items.

It's a good thing a service to help individuals sell their music on a variety of online services isn't essential.

It might be, if making music is the only real way you have to make money. Of course, in that case I would hope that you would use your proceeds to pay the service pretty quickly.

Essentials for Life: food, water, shelter, and cheap access to internet services created by other people.

Wait so if the only real way I made money was by theft, then that would make it "essential"?

Yes, that's is clearly exactly what I said.

Sure, I agree. Not all markets meet the concept of 'free'. But distrokid is competing in a market that is pretty close (helping musicians distribute music to services).

That doesn't mean the product is priced too high. It simply means that the value gained from the product is not perceived by a someone to be higher than the value of the currency amount being requested. That's how we make purchasing decisions. It's about perceived value and the trade-offs we make. Letting consumers set their own prices on products they subjectively perceive to be overpriced would run down prices as it'd be easier and easier to acquire goods, until everything ultimately became free.

What about people who can afford but are unwilling to buy luxury items, like Louis Vuitton bags? Should they be able to set their own price?

> Should they be able to set their own price?

He's offering it for free (for some users). I was simply suggesting he also allow those users to pick a price and pay him something.

Free isn't cheaper than cheap. Framing it as "Scholarship" puts a very intentional spin that it's meant to support (or even invest in) people who need it most. Letting people set their prices would just decrease the service's perceived value (the Humble Bundles can allegedly have value way over their average payments, but I can't really see beyond around five dollars.)

It's $20 for a chance to greatly simplify selling your music. If someone doesn't see value in that, leave them to submit everything manually IMO. Can't get dragged down by tightarses.

I would suggest a free trial might as a way to demonstrate value. Obviously you can see the "great simplification" only after using it. What is the easier sell - $20 for a possibility (you called it chance) to simplify a pain point you have, or $20 for something you have already observed to simplify said pain point, and have spent time entering data into and possibly making money off of?

I think the service is already more than generous on that front:

"How much will it cost me? You can upload one song for free."

Add in testimonials, press and word of mouth and prospects can get an indication of how useful DistroKid is likely to be.

When I said chance, I was allowing for lack of followthrough on the part of the artists. When there's a service that can get your material in front of purchasers so cheaply, a huge, huge portion of the responsibility to succeed then relies on you to create a saleable product and then drive some interest.

The first song upload is free.

+1 point for making the most entitled statement I've heard this week

that kind of sarcasm strikes me as needlessly acerbic.

FWIW, his idea struck me as logical. I might be able to afford something that still doesn't make sense for me to buy, since I don't get eg; $20 of value from it. See econ101. But I'm not sure PWYW would be the solution here.

Setting your own price hardly works. Panera tried it for a while and while it was charitable, there were way more people who underpaid (that could actually pay) than people who would overpay. Now IIRC, they only do it once a year.

He's offering it for free (in certain cases). I was suggesting also let people pay him a small amount instead.

Perceived price certainly varies greatly depending on the buyer.

A professional musician will not think twice about paying $50 for an awesome tab software, but to me, a hobbyist guitar player, paying more than $20 would be a stretch. This has nothing to do with the quality of the product.

The Humble Bundle pricing model has shown that such an approach can be extraordinarily successful, but I'm not sure how well it can be extended to other software products.

The market is not someone who plays guitar for fun, but someone who intends to sell their music for others to listen to. If you have ever looked into selling your music, then you should know that the costs of doing so are generally insane and this is a bargain. If you've never looked into it, then you probably aren't a serious consumer for the service anyway.

I come from a "relatively" poor country with very poor musicians. A country where many national celebrities probably do not make the equivalent of what an engineer makes in San Francisco. However I am sure every last one of them can afford $19.99/year.

No, it means that some people are cheap and companies like Google have trained them that everything should be free and/or ad supported.