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by lukas099 811 days ago
I don't think market prices usually work this way. Am I missing a reason that this is an exception?
2 comments

I would think classical mechanisms of price determination don't really make sense when there's a brand new market: customers don't know how much things "should" cost and businesses can't make decisions via comparison to competitors. So there is some arbitrariness in setting the initial prices - you can't do market research without an established market.

This is especially true with these data brokers, since it's not like "cost of materials and labor + a profit margin" makes sense. In this particular case data is more like a new commodity than a manufactured good.

Do you really think that market prices are going to reflect such a popular adage because a picture really is worth 1000 words? Does this kind of pricing differential get reflected in the salaries of journalists vs photographers? No? Then as someone else said it's a new market with an artificially "for lolz" initial price that competitors are blindly copying to avoid having to do their own price discovery. I'd expect this to shift & correct slowly over time unless it's a cute joke that everyone appreciates & the true price is close enough that no one cares enough to differentiate in that way.