Interesting comments about cables being purposefully broken. (PC word for sabotaged) I never thought of it before, but it does make sense and quite believable. I will keep that in mind henceforth.
@tomic601
To use your analogy, I think broken is more like the V8 with 4 plugs pulled sold as the 4 banger. I can see why a company would do that - you want a lower priced cable to pull new customers, but it mustn’t be so good that they don’t upgrade to the more expensive one. Cost wise, breaking your top of range table to make a lower model saves you a bundle in research costs, and you can "tune" the gap in performance to give folks a nice bump each time they invest more. Not too much, not to little. Reward your customers just enough to keep them wanting to take that next step. You reel them in all the way to the top.
Borderline immoral, but smart. Brilliant actually.
@tomic601
To use your analogy, I think broken is more like the V8 with 4 plugs pulled sold as the 4 banger. I can see why a company would do that - you want a lower priced cable to pull new customers, but it mustn’t be so good that they don’t upgrade to the more expensive one. Cost wise, breaking your top of range table to make a lower model saves you a bundle in research costs, and you can "tune" the gap in performance to give folks a nice bump each time they invest more. Not too much, not to little. Reward your customers just enough to keep them wanting to take that next step. You reel them in all the way to the top.
Borderline immoral, but smart. Brilliant actually.