You Value What You Pay For

One man’s opinion reminds me of a recent guest appearance by Tina Fey on The Late Show with David Letterman. When the time came for Dave to bring up the DVD of 30 Rock’s first season, Tina quickly mumbled a line that really stuck with me and was at first funny, but now, it’s quite smart. And in fact it’s in line with the previous link’s assertion:

People value what they pay for.

Whenever I’ve had cellphones, they were always provided by my employer. And usually, those phones were incredibly shitty. I’m sure I’m not alone, but, even though I wouldn’t intentionally try to break the thing, if I dropped it, I really didn’t care if I broke it. It wasn’t because I simply had the expectation that my employer would replace it, but that the phone itself seemed so generic and crappy. My perceptive value of the phone was quite low.

This brings us back to the recent hot topic of debate: The iPhone price gouge cut.

I paid the full price when it came out and my perceived value of the device is MUCH higher than previous phones. The hype isn’t what did it. It’s the idea that I just paid a LOT for it and that it was able to do so much. I cringe when people refer to it as a phone because to me, it kinda isn’t. I don’t constantly talk on it all day and whine about the EDGE network. I use it for many other reasons. One of which is the sheer inspiration value.

I find this device to be so intriguing because of the power packed in that tiny case. I also bought it with the hopes that a batch of hackers would sprout up and give me control over the damn thing.

Luckily they have, and the sheer fact that I can personalize the device so damn much, makes my perceived value even higher.