[HN Gopher] On Limited Editions (1998) ___________________________________________________________________ On Limited Editions (1998) Author : wallflower Score : 42 points Date : 2023-12-10 14:05 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (woodblock.com) (TXT) w3m dump (woodblock.com) | ck45 wrote: | > When people in other fields try tricks like this, they are | castigated by society, and perhaps even find themselves in | trouble with the law. | | What would be examples for those fields? I'm kind of stuck with | thinking about collectibles. | morisy wrote: | I was trying to think of this as well. I think recently there's | the great example of NFTs, but in 1998, I think that was around | the era Beanie Babies collapsed in part from the | speculation/collectible editions and maybe the Baseball Card | collapse in the late 90s? | | https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/ | | And maybe in general, at that point, a lot of limited editions | existed but were somewhat tacky and obvious, versus naturally | limited or collectible items. But I do think around this time | we saw a few collectible items go overboard in trying to push | the phenomena as far as it could go. | akovaski wrote: | I think the term to search for here is usually "price fixing" | and maybe "price gouging". Usually artificial scarcity is used | to raise prices. Think cartels, monopolies, Da Beers diamond | artificial scarcity, drug companies hiking prices. | | I also vaguely recall some fashion brands destroying products | that haven't been sold. Probably more controversial if you have | to kill an animal to create the product. | | Similarly other stores, like grocery stores, throw out or | destroy unsold goods. | | Some of these are easier to rationalize than others, but I | think all have generated some notable level of hate from | society. | | But they keep on doing it, so maybe it's worth it. | | There's also Cryptocurrency and NFTs to consider. | | Edit: Adjusting my tone a bit: I do think that society has | stopped at least some price fixing. Here is a quote from | Wikipedia: | | > The lysine cartel was the first successful prosecution of an | international cartel by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in | more than 40 years. Since then, the DOJ has discovered and | successfully prosecuted nearly 20 international cartels. | prometheus76 wrote: | Diamonds? | subdane wrote: | Some people want to create. Some people want to consume. Some | people want to collect. Sometimes consumables become collectible | (Baseball cards). Sometimes collectibles become consumable (Mona | Lisa postcards). Creators are allowed to decide who their market | is and adjust as they see fit. | jrmg wrote: | Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I'm struck by the feeling | that in a different world there would be a market for 'artisanal | software' - with varying ratios of utility vs. aesthetics as the | other arts and crafts have - and with independent software | craftspeople selling interesting apps. | | I think I would enjoy being a software craftsperson. | 8ytecoder wrote: | That's exactly what I thought FOSS would lead to (at least when | I was naive and young). I thought the freedom that comes with | FOSS would result in it tailor made software for people and | businesses that are modified in just the right way to suit | their usage. I knew it was a long shot but I had a lot of hope. | "Webservices"/the internet changed the trajectory quite a bit. | I'm not talking about the likes of businesses like Amazon, but | rather apps like GMail, that very easily outpaced what you can | do in a measly desktop computer - not to mention the issues of | saving, syncing and backing up data that was never figured | out/made easy on the desktop. | | The closest I got to enjoy this was the various Greasemonkey | scripts. | AlanYx wrote: | Mark Bernstein has written a bit about this. He used to call it | "neovictorian computing" but now uses the same "artisanal | software" term, e.g.: | https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html | foobarian wrote: | "Artisanal software" is what we call our various piles of | tech debt-ridden legacy code | jrmg wrote: | Yeah, that seems close to the kind of culture I was thinking | of. | detourdog wrote: | Technology currently lacks an aesthetic in my opinion. I think | for a craft to exist the working of the material must have | aesthetic. | | I know that both hardware and software have aesthetics but I | believe for the most part those aesthetics aren't used. I | believe this is due to being in the early stage of digital | system creation. | | Double entry book keeping be expressed in hardware I think | could be really beautiful which is what I hope Tohands from the | earlier post develops into. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38599270 | BHSPitMonkey wrote: | You might be able to say this exists, to an extent, through | hardware pairing (like the Teenage Engineering products or the | Playdate they worked on). The woodblock prints from TFA are | nothing without the specially-chosen paper they are imprinted | onto as a way of being transported and displayed; perhaps | software is the carefully-arranged ink. | jrmg wrote: | That's a good point, there is more hardware like this - | though those are more like 'mass-market' or 'commercial' art | than the kind of 'art and craft fair' stuff I was thinking of | (think custom woodworking, limited-run prints, local | photography, local watercolors - even things like pet | portraits). | | In the hardware world, I guess you could also make an | argument that stuff like https://nixieshop.com, | https://www.vestaboard.com, or https://www.traintrackr.io is | nearing this. | | I have seen real small-run 'artisan' made clocks at local art | fairs, which I guess could be MCU based. | | Maybe I should make some interesting clocks or displays and | try getting a stall at the next craft fair nearby... | tivert wrote: | > Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I'm struck by the | feeling that in a different world there would be a market for | 'artisanal software' - with varying ratios of utility vs. | aesthetics as the other arts and crafts have - and with | independent software craftspeople selling interesting apps. | | I recently watched the 5 hour cut of Until the End of the World | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_End_of_the_World), | which is an early 90s movie set "20 Minutes into the Future" (h | ttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyMinutesInt...) | . | | Some scenes depict some interesting software that might be kind | of like what you're talking about, though it's probably just a | case of a "Viewer Friendly Interface" (https://tvtropes.org/pmw | iki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViewerFriendlyIn...). Still really | entertaining, though. | Palomides wrote: | I commissioned a guy to make a small game for me last week, it | can be just like working with any other artist/individual | business | | the unfortunate reality is that an hour of software labor | doesn't go far, and software labor is super expensive | dfxm12 wrote: | I was at a university print fair recently. The numbering, edition | numbering, etc. was all over the place. There was no standard. It | was confusing for me, as a buyer who really isn't a collector and | connected to this stuff. It didn't stop me (or others) from | buying a few things though. Prices weren't tied to edition size, | and I didn't overhear any buyers asking about this stuff anyway. | Yeah, this was the low end of the market, but great art still | speaks for itself and will sell regardless of if there's a couple | hundred or an (effectively) unlimited amount of them in the | world. | | As an aside, I get annoyed when I try to buy something limited | online & it sells out instantly and shows up on ebay. Stuff like | that makes no sense to set a hard limit for since artists are | probably leaving money on the table (they could either raise | their prices or produce more). A timed release would be nice in | these cases, but quality printing is a skill and I get that an | artist can't always leave the number they're committed to make to | chance like that... | zizee wrote: | Meh. Each to their own. There is some "value" in knowing that you | own something that is not mass produced. In some aspects, each | additional print doesn't affect the utility of any of the others. | After all, it looks the same hanging on your wall. | | But there is a difference. Using an extreme example, what if the | print you hang on your wall is also hanging in every single | Starbucks? It will detract from your experience because you'll | think of Starbucks when you look at it. No one will marvel at | your good taste, or ask where you found it. People might even | look at you strangely. | | I'm not saying all unnumbered prints are going to be this | extreme, and the "value" described is logical. But hopefully this | contrived example can demonstrate that there is an loss of value | when each additional print is made (at least for a large | percentage of the population). | | If you're the sort of person that this doesn't make sense to, you | needn't be swayed by this thinking. More power to you. But let's | not pretend the practice is dishonest or perversive. And if your | selling one print of an unlimited run, don't be surprised if | people don't want to spend as much. | m0llusk wrote: | Interesting that several of the works I have collected that mean | the most to me are monoprints. With this form the material for | printing is assembled only once and may include items that may be | transformed by the printing process. Sounds like this person is | not familiar with monoprints as a format. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-11 23:00 UTC)