Shannon's Journal Discussion Thread, Vol. 5

[Shannon]

I think you should raise your prices to their true value Shannon.

While noble minded of you to artificially reduce your prices, it devalues your work and more importantly your self worth.

Our self worth is intrinsically related to the value we generate in the world. When we devalue ourselves to appease others, it’s just a downward spiral.

Some of us can't even find a job with this pandemic. If sales are down with these prices they will just get lower if they go up now. Shannon has a great heart and compassion for his customers.

I think both of you are right.  The question is, will raising the prices lower sales even more?  If my customers can't afford the product, they won't buy it.  If they don't buy it, I can't pay for taxes, electricity, server space, bandwidth, or the people who help me keep the business running - never mind paying myself.  And if I can't pay myself, how will I pay my taxes and bills and so forth?

I believe that what is best for business is what is simultaneously best for the customer and the business owner.  That is typically a price they can agree on.  Right now, I think a lot of people would agree, food, water, shelter and medicine comes first.  And without being able to find a job, or keep one, or find enough work, or pay the bills I mentioned, how will they have money to pay what my programs are really worth?

This is, in effect, the only circumstance under which I would lower my prices.  Because the best price is the one people will pay.  Something is better than nothing.  

At the same time, I don't want people to think that just because MLS 5.75.6G is not $252.95 a copy that it's only worth $114.95, or that because I'm going to be building some focus fires soon that they're not worth $114.95 because they're "just" focus-fires.  If that starts happening, I may have no choice but to raise prices.  Ultimately, what I want is what you want:  I want the price to be what the value is.  But when pandemics start happening, which triggers lockdowns, which triggers job losses, which triggers economic suicide, which triggers a long-coming currency devaluation, which triggers inflation, which triggers people to have to focus on the essentials... I have to take that into consideration.

I, like everyone else, an caught between a rock and a hard place.  For now, the price will not change.  But you're going to see a lot of changes happen in 2021, and hopefully one of them is a way for me to make us all get what we want.