Hacker News Reader

Comment by doe88 | Hacker News Reader

It was really a bad move to have created the $800 level without adding anything to the $600 package. Even adding only a small thing would certainly have improved the funding. Another factor is that in lot of minds $600 is the price point for high ends smartphones, pricing above is really really risked.

View on HN

35 minutes ago they updated the perk list with the "double edge": two ubuntu edge devices for $1400. Stil a better bargain than one piece at $830. I do think that when you're going for this kind of money on a crowdfunding website you kind of know what you're doing. The update also states that they'll be having plenty of other updates during the next weeks.

No matter how it ends, this is going to be a really interesting experiment for the marketing guys at Canonical and for crowdfunding in general.

They have to continue to do things like this if they want to stay in the public consciousness for the next month. Should be interesting to watch.

Yeah, this was basically my thinking. I'd love to support a high end phone with an OS not intended to collect every iota of my personal data and use it for advertising. However, while $600 is a price I'd pay to have it now, $600 for the given specifications in a year is too risky.

But at the very least they've got some price validation. Seems like reasonably robust data for a highly visible campaign at both $600 and $820 price points that should give at least moderately good data on the price-demand curve.

They just announced a new perk, 2 phones for $1400 ($700/phone). I was wondering how they were going to offer future discounts without pissing off those that have already pledged $800. This is a kind of neat approach since you'd probably need a friend to buy-in with you which should also enhance the viral plan.

I'm a little surprised this came so quickly on the second day but I guess the earlier it gets to a high value the better it is for visibility.

They see the same metrics that we do and can use it as a gauge on variable pricing to maximize the potential buy-in.

They've added a new "Double Edge" level - two phones for 1400 - after removing the 600. Amazon has an unlocked iPhone 16GB for 691.

interesting that they removed the $600 price point. i find that kind of practice deceiving.

It was listed as a 24-hour only price point in the description. Nothing deceiving about that.

They stated originally that the $600 was only going to be available for the first 24hours of the campaign.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com