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Comment by lkozma | Hacker News Reader

You seem to have an axe to grind - almost all the points you mention (assuming they are true) can describe a well managed company, if you skip the negative spin.

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well managed company? What he described is very nearly rent seeking. If a company is never innovating and always simply copying what everyone else does then that means that, 1) they will always be cheaper than their competitors and 2) if they ever completely win their market they will be stuck with the last iteration because they can't afford to innovate.

People like to say a race for the bottom is good for consumers but it isn't. A race for the bottom is only good for people playing arbitrage games who know to get out before the bottom is reached.

If your thesis is correct, the optimal strategy for us would be to sell when the prices are very high (like they are now) i.e collect the next 50 years of "rent" right now, because it is so readily available. Instead, we continually and steadily improve the product (while clearly acknowledging that we have much work to do). Don't you think that is an awful rent seeking strategy?

It's amusing that you're defensive on this subject. Someone accused you of something, then another commenter said the described strategy was actually that of a well managed company. I explained the described strategy was very nearly rent seeking. So even though the thread started about your company, it became more general and that's when I stepped in.

I wasn't talking about your company specifically because I don't even know what you do. But the fact that you're defensive enough to take my comment as an attack makes me wonder if the OP was actually close to the mark. :)

No I didn't think you accused us of that. I merely responded what we would do as a rent seeker :)

As for the original accusations, "develop a thick skin" is my attitude, so you saw I never bothered to respond.

Fair enough.

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