Brian,
I'm sorry, but the "market" is a myth, perpetrated by those corporate monopoly interests that control prices by making the rest of us use all our creative energy competing against one another so that none of us make a decent living, that is none of us who refuse to sign on as their well-rewarded henchmen. (And sooner or later they will get the pink slips!)
They convince us to worship progress and obediently we accelerate our consumption of the natural resources of the planet to create more and more toxic waste and more and more mindless games for people to pay to play. So the one percenters create even bigger wastes and play more expensive mindless games. It is they who ultimately set value, as it suits their interests. They will not be happy until technology replaces all of the labor component of producing goods and services.
At some point "value" needs to consider cost, real cost--not just what somebody will pay. And cost includes not only a fair living to workers and entrepreneurs, but the cost to the environment and to our psyches, as well.
Hurrying to hell in a high-tech handbasket?
Ron Reimer
--- In selling_stock_photography@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Yarvin" <brian@...> wrote:
>
> > As mentioned, the "value" you assign to something and the "value" a buyer is
> > willing to compensate you for are two different things. If a buyer wants to pay
> > you $5 for usage rights, and you accept it, that's the value.
>
> > It's easy to base price on size because it is a concrete fact that X size or Y
> > size is available, and there is some usefulness to having access to a larger
> > pixel dimension. "Value" is inherently debatable, per image/product.
>
> Sean:
>
> I have never heard of a business where the value of a product is set by the needs of vendors,
> the prices of everything from oil to fine art are set by what people are paying. (Indeed, both
> items I mentioned use auction prices to determine value.)
>
> Over the years, photographers have told me - although not in these words - that they are
> exempt from market forces and I could never figure out how they came to that conclusion.
>
> Face it; the value of something you produce isn't what you want to charge, it's what people
> are regularly paying.
>
> And in a separate, but related question; I always thought that the value of a stock photo was
> measured by how many dollars per year it earned in the long haul, not by random individual
> transactions.
>
> Brian Yarvin
> Author, Educator, Photographer
>
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