| competition.pdf |
Most folks believe it is. Businesses who develop products to fulfill consumer needs must compete in the marketplace. Consumers decide which product will best meet their needs at a reasonable cost. The best maker attracts the most customers.
___Makes sense, right?
___No, it does NOT. Here's why.
___Objection Number One: Entrepreneurs keep propriety knowledge about their products to themselves. Any business who wishes to enter the market must start from scratch. New competitors must develop their products from square-one. This lack of transparency among makers results in multiple contenders. Three or four similar versions will claim to fulfill consumer needs. Product A may be the cheapest. Product B may be the easiest to use right off the bat. Product C may offer the most features. Consumers have three (possibly more) choices, but users will have to pay development costs for each product since all vendors will have spent money to develop its product from scratch. In essence, you get three or more products, none of which is ideal on every benchmark. Different products will excel in some aspects more than others, but none will fulfill all possible customer needs.
___Objection Number Two: To crack the marketplace here in the 21st-century, (1) makers must have financial backers to bridge the gap between prototype and fully outfitted assembly line; (2) makers must pay for topnotch advertising campaigns; (3) makers must weasel or otherwise gain access to multibranch distribution networks. These costs will be reflected in the retail prices of new products. In other words, users will pay the marketing costs whether they buy product A, B or C.
___Take the common cold, for instance. Medical science has yet to find a dependable cure for the common cold. No matter. Pharmacologists market hundreds of so-called cures for the common cold. Go inside any drug store, and you'll find a whole aisle devoted to so-called cures for the common cold. Scientists have found only one remedy that helps on a delayed timeframe. I'm speaking of generic aspirin. The active ingredient for aspirin has a-thousand year track record as a herbal remedy, commonly made from the bark of the black birch or willow trees. I can't imagine why Bayer was ever given a patent, because all he did was extract and package a remedy herbalists have prescribed for one-thousand years.
___Now let's get back to our aisle of so-called remedies for the common cold. Half of these remedies are probably more harmful to folks than they are helpful. Popular brands such as Advil, Tylenol, Motrin cannot claim to be one wit better than generic aspirin. And in many cases, they are definitely worse, although each of these popular brands sell at higher prices than generic aspirin. If you buy these "snake-oil" cures, you are paying for clever advertising campaigns and corporate leverage that muscles shelf space from lower-cost competitors.
___If you don't believe me, check out recent and older articles in the Scientific American. If healthcare can lay claim to a magic bullet, a veritable cure-all, that remedy would be called generic aspirin. Besides stifling headaches and opening air passages, aspirin strengthens one's heart and relieves arthritic pain. Biotech giants have spent billions of dollars on miracle cures and cutting-edge medicines, but they haven't come close to matching the old standby, the remedy with a-thousand year track record. I mean generic aspirin. If the biotechs can't tackle something as obvious as the common cold, one has to wonder if their other, more expensive remedies are worth a plumb nickel.
___Makes sense, right?
___No, it does NOT. Here's why.
___Objection Number One: Entrepreneurs keep propriety knowledge about their products to themselves. Any business who wishes to enter the market must start from scratch. New competitors must develop their products from square-one. This lack of transparency among makers results in multiple contenders. Three or four similar versions will claim to fulfill consumer needs. Product A may be the cheapest. Product B may be the easiest to use right off the bat. Product C may offer the most features. Consumers have three (possibly more) choices, but users will have to pay development costs for each product since all vendors will have spent money to develop its product from scratch. In essence, you get three or more products, none of which is ideal on every benchmark. Different products will excel in some aspects more than others, but none will fulfill all possible customer needs.
___Objection Number Two: To crack the marketplace here in the 21st-century, (1) makers must have financial backers to bridge the gap between prototype and fully outfitted assembly line; (2) makers must pay for topnotch advertising campaigns; (3) makers must weasel or otherwise gain access to multibranch distribution networks. These costs will be reflected in the retail prices of new products. In other words, users will pay the marketing costs whether they buy product A, B or C.
___Take the common cold, for instance. Medical science has yet to find a dependable cure for the common cold. No matter. Pharmacologists market hundreds of so-called cures for the common cold. Go inside any drug store, and you'll find a whole aisle devoted to so-called cures for the common cold. Scientists have found only one remedy that helps on a delayed timeframe. I'm speaking of generic aspirin. The active ingredient for aspirin has a-thousand year track record as a herbal remedy, commonly made from the bark of the black birch or willow trees. I can't imagine why Bayer was ever given a patent, because all he did was extract and package a remedy herbalists have prescribed for one-thousand years.
___Now let's get back to our aisle of so-called remedies for the common cold. Half of these remedies are probably more harmful to folks than they are helpful. Popular brands such as Advil, Tylenol, Motrin cannot claim to be one wit better than generic aspirin. And in many cases, they are definitely worse, although each of these popular brands sell at higher prices than generic aspirin. If you buy these "snake-oil" cures, you are paying for clever advertising campaigns and corporate leverage that muscles shelf space from lower-cost competitors.
___If you don't believe me, check out recent and older articles in the Scientific American. If healthcare can lay claim to a magic bullet, a veritable cure-all, that remedy would be called generic aspirin. Besides stifling headaches and opening air passages, aspirin strengthens one's heart and relieves arthritic pain. Biotech giants have spent billions of dollars on miracle cures and cutting-edge medicines, but they haven't come close to matching the old standby, the remedy with a-thousand year track record. I mean generic aspirin. If the biotechs can't tackle something as obvious as the common cold, one has to wonder if their other, more expensive remedies are worth a plumb nickel.
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