Ordered my shotgun
Road Warrior
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 1,465
Likes: 3
From: Montclair, CA.
Proraptor, I'll start off with saying I'm not attacking you for your comment. I will say that your comment (and the feelings behind it) are why art is mostly dead in this country.
How much profit do you think J.D. is making off of one of these units? Factor in shop space, R&D time, CNC machine(s), fixtures, and tooling, materials, utilities, advertising, administration costs, employees, insurance, travel to what are essentially trade shows (the bike rallies and shows they attend), etc. Figure it's a small business, so the $X worth of development is spread out over hundreds of units, not hundreds of thousands of units. Now, put in there the insane level of support. Let's not even talk about skills development in order to run and design all this stuff. A skilled machinest/programmer isn't exactly "would you like fries with that" labor.
My wife and I used to (barely) support ourselves with our artwork. She used to be an incredibly talented knife maker. The economy tanked, materials costs went up, and one too many ******** figured that her $10/hr she made making a knife was an insane price to pay, "when I can get something at WalMart for $20". Sorry, Jack... but it COST $100 in materials and overhead, and it TOOK 20 hours to do. You want a cheap knife, they're made in China all day long. You want something that someone put a piece of themselves into, it's $300 (and we'll eat Ramen again). What's more, it's YEARS of practice that allowed her to make that knife with that level of skill in that amount of time.
It's no different with low-production wheels, one-off seats, or any other specialty gadget.... or J.D.'s Shotgun.
So... $1200 for the shocks is crazy? Probably not, and personally I'd say hell no, it's reasonable. Is it within everyone's budget and worth the expense to every potential buyer? Absolutely not. It took me 6 months to finally make the purchase, solely because it wasn't within my reach at the time.
How much profit do you think J.D. is making off of one of these units? Factor in shop space, R&D time, CNC machine(s), fixtures, and tooling, materials, utilities, advertising, administration costs, employees, insurance, travel to what are essentially trade shows (the bike rallies and shows they attend), etc. Figure it's a small business, so the $X worth of development is spread out over hundreds of units, not hundreds of thousands of units. Now, put in there the insane level of support. Let's not even talk about skills development in order to run and design all this stuff. A skilled machinest/programmer isn't exactly "would you like fries with that" labor.
My wife and I used to (barely) support ourselves with our artwork. She used to be an incredibly talented knife maker. The economy tanked, materials costs went up, and one too many ******** figured that her $10/hr she made making a knife was an insane price to pay, "when I can get something at WalMart for $20". Sorry, Jack... but it COST $100 in materials and overhead, and it TOOK 20 hours to do. You want a cheap knife, they're made in China all day long. You want something that someone put a piece of themselves into, it's $300 (and we'll eat Ramen again). What's more, it's YEARS of practice that allowed her to make that knife with that level of skill in that amount of time.
It's no different with low-production wheels, one-off seats, or any other specialty gadget.... or J.D.'s Shotgun.
So... $1200 for the shocks is crazy? Probably not, and personally I'd say hell no, it's reasonable. Is it within everyone's budget and worth the expense to every potential buyer? Absolutely not. It took me 6 months to finally make the purchase, solely because it wasn't within my reach at the time.
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