Good points, but whose fault is it that Britney Spears sells soft drinks? Coca-Colas?
Like I wrote, "If you don't like it, don't buy it".
BTW (3) was written tongue in cheek as I was trying to make a point similar to yours: it doesn't just cost them 5 cents for a bottle of coke, they have massive costs, in this case advertising.
But the bottom line is:
People CHOOSE to pay .89, they can live without coke, but they choose to pay it anyway. Why is that?
But back to Britney; I have had a long standing guideline for life: Self-knowledge is the key to liberty. If marketers, propagandists, and conmen understand how you think better than you understand how you think then you are already a slave as your
buttons get pushed a thousand times a day.
Coke/Britney are surely pushing people's buttons, but its only a button if people don't know its being pushed (or it feels really good to have pushed), however, its the people themselves who refuse to take responsibility for their own self knowledge and
liberty that are buying this bill of goods.
There is no free lunch. I think 'Buyer Be Self-Aware' is a better way to put it than 'Buyer Beware'.
Marty
"Steven T. Ekstrand" wrote:
>
> | (3) Start your own soft drink company, sell for 40 cents instead of 90
> cents. This (given your math) will still give you a whopping 700% profit.
> You will blow the competition away in volume! Everyone will hail you as
> the liberator of soft drinks!
>
> Sorry, been tried and didn't work...
>
> Soft drinks are a classic oligopoly. Anybody can make soda pop, but only a
> few can obtain product differentiation and brand loyalty through massive
> marketing dollars. Pepsi and Coke learned long ago that competing on price
> doesn't gain them as much market share as spending money on Britney Spears
> and Christina Aguilera.
>
> -Dr. Steve
-- "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." --G.B. Shaw
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