[HN Gopher] On Limited Editions (1998)
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On Limited Editions (1998)
Author : wallflower
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-12-10 14:05 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (woodblock.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (woodblock.com)
| ck45 wrote:
| > When people in other fields try tricks like this, they are
| castigated by society, and perhaps even find themselves in
| trouble with the law.
|
| What would be examples for those fields? I'm kind of stuck with
| thinking about collectibles.
| morisy wrote:
| I was trying to think of this as well. I think recently there's
| the great example of NFTs, but in 1998, I think that was around
| the era Beanie Babies collapsed in part from the
| speculation/collectible editions and maybe the Baseball Card
| collapse in the late 90s?
|
| https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/
|
| And maybe in general, at that point, a lot of limited editions
| existed but were somewhat tacky and obvious, versus naturally
| limited or collectible items. But I do think around this time
| we saw a few collectible items go overboard in trying to push
| the phenomena as far as it could go.
| akovaski wrote:
| I think the term to search for here is usually "price fixing"
| and maybe "price gouging". Usually artificial scarcity is used
| to raise prices. Think cartels, monopolies, Da Beers diamond
| artificial scarcity, drug companies hiking prices.
|
| I also vaguely recall some fashion brands destroying products
| that haven't been sold. Probably more controversial if you have
| to kill an animal to create the product.
|
| Similarly other stores, like grocery stores, throw out or
| destroy unsold goods.
|
| Some of these are easier to rationalize than others, but I
| think all have generated some notable level of hate from
| society.
|
| But they keep on doing it, so maybe it's worth it.
|
| There's also Cryptocurrency and NFTs to consider.
|
| Edit: Adjusting my tone a bit: I do think that society has
| stopped at least some price fixing. Here is a quote from
| Wikipedia:
|
| > The lysine cartel was the first successful prosecution of an
| international cartel by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in
| more than 40 years. Since then, the DOJ has discovered and
| successfully prosecuted nearly 20 international cartels.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| Diamonds?
| subdane wrote:
| Some people want to create. Some people want to consume. Some
| people want to collect. Sometimes consumables become collectible
| (Baseball cards). Sometimes collectibles become consumable (Mona
| Lisa postcards). Creators are allowed to decide who their market
| is and adjust as they see fit.
| jrmg wrote:
| Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I'm struck by the feeling
| that in a different world there would be a market for 'artisanal
| software' - with varying ratios of utility vs. aesthetics as the
| other arts and crafts have - and with independent software
| craftspeople selling interesting apps.
|
| I think I would enjoy being a software craftsperson.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| That's exactly what I thought FOSS would lead to (at least when
| I was naive and young). I thought the freedom that comes with
| FOSS would result in it tailor made software for people and
| businesses that are modified in just the right way to suit
| their usage. I knew it was a long shot but I had a lot of hope.
| "Webservices"/the internet changed the trajectory quite a bit.
| I'm not talking about the likes of businesses like Amazon, but
| rather apps like GMail, that very easily outpaced what you can
| do in a measly desktop computer - not to mention the issues of
| saving, syncing and backing up data that was never figured
| out/made easy on the desktop.
|
| The closest I got to enjoy this was the various Greasemonkey
| scripts.
| AlanYx wrote:
| Mark Bernstein has written a bit about this. He used to call it
| "neovictorian computing" but now uses the same "artisanal
| software" term, e.g.:
| https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html
| foobarian wrote:
| "Artisanal software" is what we call our various piles of
| tech debt-ridden legacy code
| jrmg wrote:
| Yeah, that seems close to the kind of culture I was thinking
| of.
| detourdog wrote:
| Technology currently lacks an aesthetic in my opinion. I think
| for a craft to exist the working of the material must have
| aesthetic.
|
| I know that both hardware and software have aesthetics but I
| believe for the most part those aesthetics aren't used. I
| believe this is due to being in the early stage of digital
| system creation.
|
| Double entry book keeping be expressed in hardware I think
| could be really beautiful which is what I hope Tohands from the
| earlier post develops into.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38599270
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| You might be able to say this exists, to an extent, through
| hardware pairing (like the Teenage Engineering products or the
| Playdate they worked on). The woodblock prints from TFA are
| nothing without the specially-chosen paper they are imprinted
| onto as a way of being transported and displayed; perhaps
| software is the carefully-arranged ink.
| jrmg wrote:
| That's a good point, there is more hardware like this -
| though those are more like 'mass-market' or 'commercial' art
| than the kind of 'art and craft fair' stuff I was thinking of
| (think custom woodworking, limited-run prints, local
| photography, local watercolors - even things like pet
| portraits).
|
| In the hardware world, I guess you could also make an
| argument that stuff like https://nixieshop.com,
| https://www.vestaboard.com, or https://www.traintrackr.io is
| nearing this.
|
| I have seen real small-run 'artisan' made clocks at local art
| fairs, which I guess could be MCU based.
|
| Maybe I should make some interesting clocks or displays and
| try getting a stall at the next craft fair nearby...
| tivert wrote:
| > Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I'm struck by the
| feeling that in a different world there would be a market for
| 'artisanal software' - with varying ratios of utility vs.
| aesthetics as the other arts and crafts have - and with
| independent software craftspeople selling interesting apps.
|
| I recently watched the 5 hour cut of Until the End of the World
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_End_of_the_World),
| which is an early 90s movie set "20 Minutes into the Future" (h
| ttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyMinutesInt...)
| .
|
| Some scenes depict some interesting software that might be kind
| of like what you're talking about, though it's probably just a
| case of a "Viewer Friendly Interface" (https://tvtropes.org/pmw
| iki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViewerFriendlyIn...). Still really
| entertaining, though.
| Palomides wrote:
| I commissioned a guy to make a small game for me last week, it
| can be just like working with any other artist/individual
| business
|
| the unfortunate reality is that an hour of software labor
| doesn't go far, and software labor is super expensive
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I was at a university print fair recently. The numbering, edition
| numbering, etc. was all over the place. There was no standard. It
| was confusing for me, as a buyer who really isn't a collector and
| connected to this stuff. It didn't stop me (or others) from
| buying a few things though. Prices weren't tied to edition size,
| and I didn't overhear any buyers asking about this stuff anyway.
| Yeah, this was the low end of the market, but great art still
| speaks for itself and will sell regardless of if there's a couple
| hundred or an (effectively) unlimited amount of them in the
| world.
|
| As an aside, I get annoyed when I try to buy something limited
| online & it sells out instantly and shows up on ebay. Stuff like
| that makes no sense to set a hard limit for since artists are
| probably leaving money on the table (they could either raise
| their prices or produce more). A timed release would be nice in
| these cases, but quality printing is a skill and I get that an
| artist can't always leave the number they're committed to make to
| chance like that...
| zizee wrote:
| Meh. Each to their own. There is some "value" in knowing that you
| own something that is not mass produced. In some aspects, each
| additional print doesn't affect the utility of any of the others.
| After all, it looks the same hanging on your wall.
|
| But there is a difference. Using an extreme example, what if the
| print you hang on your wall is also hanging in every single
| Starbucks? It will detract from your experience because you'll
| think of Starbucks when you look at it. No one will marvel at
| your good taste, or ask where you found it. People might even
| look at you strangely.
|
| I'm not saying all unnumbered prints are going to be this
| extreme, and the "value" described is logical. But hopefully this
| contrived example can demonstrate that there is an loss of value
| when each additional print is made (at least for a large
| percentage of the population).
|
| If you're the sort of person that this doesn't make sense to, you
| needn't be swayed by this thinking. More power to you. But let's
| not pretend the practice is dishonest or perversive. And if your
| selling one print of an unlimited run, don't be surprised if
| people don't want to spend as much.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Interesting that several of the works I have collected that mean
| the most to me are monoprints. With this form the material for
| printing is assembled only once and may include items that may be
| transformed by the printing process. Sounds like this person is
| not familiar with monoprints as a format.
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