Why is the Pixelbook so expensive?

[Underseer]

When the Google Pixelbook originally came out, everyone asked the same question: Why in the [bad word] would anyone want to buy a $1000 Chromebook?

Sure, the Pixelbook looks like the best Chromebook ever made, and some reviewers even insisted that its keyboard is better than that of any other laptop out there, but no one seemed to think a $1000 Chromebook makes any sense given that most of the Chromebook market is currently made up of cheap $200[ent]mdash[/ent]$400 glorified web browsers intended for schools, for parents to buy for kids, for your tech-challenged granny, etc.

First, Chromebooks can now run Android apps and LINUX apps, so they're starting to look and function more like a real laptop that runs real productivity apps.

Second, I'm suddenly seeing a wave of Chromebook products from various manufacturers that fall into the $500[ent]mdash[/ent]$700 range.

For example, the HP Chromebook X2, which is going for anywhere from $500[ent]mdash[/ent]$600.

Every review I've seen for one of these new "mid range" Chromebook devices has the reviewer excitedly pointing out "The specs aren't that much worse than a Pixelbook, and it's X dollars cheaper!" If the Pixelbook never came out, all of those reviewers would have pointed out "Wow, a $600 Chromebook? That's twice as expensive as a usual Chromebook!"

By putting a very expensive Chromebook on the market first, Google changed what the reviewers say on all those other mid-range products coming out right now.

Sure, the Google Pixelbook is currently on sale for $700 instead of $1000, but I still argue that the HP Chromebook X2 is better bang for your buck. I can't help but wonder if the real purpose of the Pixelbook was to run "interference" for a new category of Chromebooks coming out from other manufacturers.

Android tablets are on the way to obsolescence because Android developers didn't feel like making apps that make use of the extra screen real estate that tablets offer. From that perspective, this seems like a shrewd move on Google's part. If they expect Chromebooks to fill the void Android tablets were supposed to fill, then it makes sense to help Chromebook manufacturers make more money with more products.

I should stress that I don't have an ounce of evidence for any of this, but does this sound like a reasonable explanation for the ridiculously expensive Pixelbook?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It could be their marketing strategy (put out a much more expensive version in order to make their cheaper models more attractive). They wouldn't be the first to use such a strategy.

 

[bilby]

It's a common marketing practice - it's called 'anchoring'.

 

[rousseau]

I think it was Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely where I first read about anchoring. IIRC, he's got a chapter devoted to sales techniques.

It's safe to say that just about any retail store out there is somehow trying to fool you. It's so widespread that we don't even notice it happening.

 

[bilby]

I think it was Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely where I first read about anchoring. IIRC, he's got a chapter devoted to sales techniques.

It's safe to say that just about any retail store out there is somehow trying to fool you. It's so widespread that we don't even notice it happening.

Yup. Anchoring is just one of many ways in which we are subtly manipulated by sales and marketing to do what they want, rather than what we (originally) wanted.

These include price expectation manipulation such as anchoring; and even retail outlet design - as pioneered by Victor Gruen.

IKEA are famous for their manipulative store design, whereby it is difficult and confusing to get through the store other than via a predefined route that passes every display, maximizing the opportunity for impulse purchases. There are usually shortcuts, but these are deliberately placed so that they require 180-degree turns, which people are disinclined to make.

Basically, marketing people are scumbags.

 

[steve_bank]

What probably happens is that market analysis shows how much cash people have to spend by age and demographics.

They set price in accordance with the estimated number of people who can afford it and wants expensive gadgets.

Considering mass production in China how much do you think it costs Apple to make an iPhone that they sell for $1000?

 

[rousseau]

Basically, marketing people are scumbags.

My time at 3M gave me good perspective on this.

You hire a marketing person, you give them a salary, and they can't feed their kids unless they do a good job marketing your product. What happens? Sales and marketing techniques. Corporations are by their very nature amoral. Organizationally, they can't be any other way because employees are forced to act in the interest of the company. Even the companies with the pretense of 'doing good' have a bottom line to meet.

Is it a sad reality? No, but a good thing to be aware of. Nobody's going to look out for your pocket-book but yourself.

 

[Underseer]

I think it was Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely where I first read about anchoring. IIRC, he's got a chapter devoted to sales techniques.

It's safe to say that just about any retail store out there is somehow trying to fool you. It's so widespread that we don't even notice it happening.

Yup.

My brother used to work in retail and told me exactly how worthless "sales" were. They would say "25% off!" but not tell you 25% off from what. Usually it was bullshit.

 

[bilby]

I think it was Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely where I first read about anchoring. IIRC, he's got a chapter devoted to sales techniques.

It's safe to say that just about any retail store out there is somehow trying to fool you. It's so widespread that we don't even notice it happening.

Yup.

My brother used to work in retail and told me exactly how worthless "sales" were. They would say "25% off!" but not tell you 25% off from what. Usually it was bullshit.

"Don't pay $500! Today only, just pay $400!"

Actually, I was planning to pay the $100 I thought it was worth. But now that you have implied that I could have paid $500, $400 sounds like a great deal. The fact that nobody has ever paid $500, and that the marketer never even said that anyone did, is irrelevant - people's brains don't work like that, particularly when under time pressure. "What time pressure?" I hear you ask. Well, the $400 is today only. Except that there's exactly zero chance that if you go back tomorrow and offer the salesman $400, he will say 'Sorry, you missed out'. No price is ever available 'Today only'.

 

[Underseer]

I bring this up because I'm kind of half-assed looking for a tablet replacement.

As mentioned in the workout thread, lately I've been reading digital textbooks on a tablet while working out at the gym on cardio machines (mainly elliptical machines). Unfortunately, a lot of digital textbooks are not given a new layout to look good on digital devices. They just take the same exact layout used for printing the textbook and make a PDF out of it (which presumably gets ported to another format). This means I have to spend a lot of time either hunched over and squinting, or endlessly pinching and zooming while reading the texbook on that machine in the gym.

So I was looking for a tablet that has a higher resolution and a physically larger screen (in both dimensions) than my current Galaxy Tab S2 9.7, but which doesn't cost an arm and a leg and isn't too heavy to rest on the console of one of those cardio machines at the gym. With Android tablets on the way out, the pickin's are pretty slim with all those caveats and requirements.

This led me to watching or reading a lot of reviews for mid-range tablets, which led to the Pixelbook and upcoming Pixelbook slate, both of which charge an awful lot of money for what you get compared to other Android/Chromebook devices, which in turn led to the above observations.

Review after review kept saying "Cheaper than the Pixelbook!" instead of the expected "So much more expensive than a usual Chromebook device."

 

[bilby]

I bring this up because I'm kind of half-assed looking for a tablet replacement.

As mentioned in the workout thread, lately I've been reading digital textbooks on a tablet while working out at the gym on cardio machines (mainly elliptical machines). Unfortunately, a lot of digital textbooks are not given a new layout to look good on digital devices. They just take the same exact layout used for printing the textbook and make a PDF out of it (which presumably gets ported to another format). This means I have to spend a lot of time either hunched over and squinting, or endlessly pinching and zooming while reading the texbook on that machine in the gym.

So I was looking for a tablet that has a higher resolution and a physically larger screen (in both dimensions) than my current Galaxy Tab S2 9.7, but which doesn't cost an arm and a leg and isn't too heavy to rest on the console of one of those cardio machines at the gym. With Android tablets on the way out, the pickin's are pretty slim with all those caveats and requirements.

This led me to watching or reading a lot of reviews for mid-range tablets, which led to the Pixelbook and upcoming Pixelbook slate, both of which charge an awful lot of money for what you get compared to other Android/Chromebook devices, which in turn led to the above observations.

Review after review kept saying "Cheaper than the Pixelbook!" instead of the expected "So much more expensive than a usual Chromebook device."

Some reviewers are really marketers in disguise. Many are independent, but subject to the same manipulation as the rest of us, and no better able to resist it. And many are subject to even greater manipulation than the rest of us, because marketers know that reviewers are a pathway to many sales, and specifically target them. People (including reviewers) are lazy. If they have the option to cut and paste some parts of their review from a press release, they often will, rather than bother to write their own review from scratch. And if that press release was provided at an all expenses paid launch 'event', the reviewer likely already feels pretty well disposed towards the products he is (completely independently) reviewing.

Basically, marketing people are scumbags.

 

[steve_bank]

It gets better, ot worse depending on how ypu look at it.

In the 80s as PCs sold and software competition grew a phenomena was observed.

Software that sold for a lot less than existing products that were as good or better did not sell. People thought that because of low price there must be something deficient.

The old Cadilacs of the 50s and 60s did not cost much more to nake than regular cars but the price was a lot higher.

People paid for exclusivity. I imagine it is the same with the gadfets. People get a personal feeling of money well spent for 1 $1k gadget.

All devices and computers are essentially the sane hardware with I guess roughly equivalent costs to make. They atre al made in the same Chinese factories, and a big part of that is FOXCON.

Apple has always had hyped rollouts and announcements. Press conferences build anticipation.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Basically, marketing people are scumbags.

As in all industries, they can be. At heart, however, marketing is just telling a story and if you aren't going to listen to the story they're telling, then they have to come up with a different story.

9 times out of 10 the only such stories that people will listen to--and thereby support through their consumer dollars on a consistent basis--are the authentic ones; the ones that match their products, not lie about their products. Lies are quickly discerned and the businesses will go under as a result if they keep it up in all but the stupidest of minds.

Apple's marketing "story," for example, is perfectly authentic. Their story is "cool." They aren't telling any other story than "cool." And people buy their crap because it's cool. And they have had several missteps along the way with shit that wasn't considered cool (like Apple Music) and their customers immediately let them know by not buying it.

Apple's brilliance isn't in marketing lies; it's in responding to their customers and giving them what they want and what they want is not necessarily the best computer for the dollar, but the coolest computer for the dollar.

It's not Apple's fault that their customers are shallow hipster trend fuckers. Nor are their marketers "scumbags" for listening to what their customers want and giving it to them to the best of their abilities.

In the end, it is always caveat emptor.

 

[rousseau]

In the end, it is always caveat emptor.

This. At the end of the day most people just aren't very discerning about their purchases. In most cases small sales ploys have no serious consequences, other than removing people from their money. And in a certain sense it's completely the fault of the consumer. They'd rather just buy and be done with it, rather than engage their brain even though doing so can lead to huge benefits.

 

[Underseer]

Basically, marketing people are scumbags.

As in all industries, they can be. At heart, however, marketing is just telling a story and if you aren't going to listen to the story they're telling, then they have to come up with a different story.

9 times out of 10 the only such stories that people will listen to--and thereby support through their consumer dollars on a consistent basis--are the authentic ones; the ones that match their products, not lie about their products. Lies are quickly discerned and the businesses will go under as a result if they keep it up in all but the stupidest of minds.

Apple's marketing "story," for example, is perfectly authentic. Their story is "cool." They aren't telling any other story than "cool." And people buy their crap because it's cool. And they have had several missteps along the way with shit that wasn't considered cool (like Apple Music) and their customers immediately let them know by not buying it.

Apple's brilliance isn't in marketing lies; it's in responding to their customers and giving them what they want and what they want is not necessarily the best computer for the dollar, but the coolest computer for the dollar.

It's not Apple's fault that their customers are shallow hipster trend fuckers. Nor are their marketers "scumbags" for listening to what their customers want and giving it to them to the best of their abilities.

In the end, it is always caveat emptor.

Apple is frequently misleading, but they can always count on sunk cost fallacy to keep fanboys in line whenever they get caught doing deceptive marketing. Apple products are more expensive and require buying into an entire ecosystem, and so the sunk cost phenomenon hits harder.