Quote:
Originally Posted by Tempester
Good thing that I'm taking economics right now, as reading this thread is easily making me know how price discrimination can hurt consumers.
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Price discrimination is a vital aspect of marketing intellectual property. While one series might be seen as a competitor to others, in fact each item is a near-monopoly. There's only one
Madoka, one Boston Red Sox, one
Gone with the Wind, etc. Profits are maximized when you can sell the item to different market segments at the highest price each segment is willing to pay. Thus we see limited editions, then standard editions, then discount editions (e.g, Funimation S.A.V.E), then bargain bins. Monopoly provides the leverage for price discrimination.
I'm not sure that this "hurts" consumers necessarily since consumers who derive the greatest "marginal utility" from purchasing the good pay more than ones whose marginal utility from the purchase is less. There's also the additional utility return of owning a luxury item that may have value above and beyond the item itself. All watches keep pretty accurate time these days, but some are Rolexes and others are from Timex.