3 Matching Annotations
- Nov 2020
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julian.digital julian.digital
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If membership isn’t scarce, the membership loses its signal message. The same applies to physical products: Apple will never offer a cheap iPhone to compete with low-end Android devices – it would destroy the company’s signal message that the iPhone is a luxury product.
If a high-end brand comes out with a low-end offering, it is diluting the high-end part of their brand message. Apple will never come out with a low-end version of the iPhone because it would dilute the message of being a premium phone.
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The app that comes closest to a luxury service that I can think of is Superhuman, which charges its users $30 a month for an email client (which you could also get for free by just using Gmail). But there’s a difference to other software products: Superhuman has signal distribution built in. Every time you send an email via Superhuman, your recipient will notice a little “Sent via Superhuman” in your signature.
Superhuman is the closest thing Julian can think of to a luxury software product. One reason might be that Superhuman has some signalling built in: It will add a little "sent by superhuman" to your signature.
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Another point of evidence is the lack of luxury software products. People spend absurd amounts of money on jewellery, handbags and cars, but I can’t think of a piece of software with an even remotely similar price tag. Sure, people have tried to sell $999 apps but those never took off.
Julian Lehr posits that because software purchases are less visible, their signalling power is reduced. This is why, for instance, you don't see any luxury software products: Because you cannot signal you're in on it.
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