Imperative Pricing Decreases

It took about a half dozen years longer than most of us expected, but most of the powerful visual technologies (such as digital video cameras and LCD displays) have become half the price compared to when they were first manufactured. There is a categorical "imperative" occurring in the world of visual arts and the merchandise used to create professional works. It's not completely impossible for students to obtain the equipmenht they need to learn how to do their future jobs properly. For instance, my roommate in freshman year of college needed a digital video camera of mid-professional quality. I don't know the exact details of the camera he purchased, however the quality was high enough that his final project for the semester looked like something that could be aired on MTV with ease. If he had attempted to purchase the same camera about two years earlier, it would have been even more expensive.

I noticed another strange difference, that even professional visual equipment has distinctly dropped in price so much that small companies like JibJab can purchase a professional grade digi-beta video camera through a retailer with a low budget and a credit card. Instead of having to rely upon making business deals, it's as simple as logging online, searching for the lowest price, and executing a very simple purchase plan through someone like me whom does all the company purchases. $45,000 cameras are rarely used anymore, and even reality television has changed. My roommate described to me the lack of need for camera assistants and runners these days, cutting down on costs for Production Assistants and film assemblers. It has almost come to the point that digital information is as high quality (or in some cases higher quality) than normal film. My father was a die-hard analogue fanatic up until two or three years ago, when he finally made the switch to digital photo cameras for his professional work. Somehow, digital captures the light in such a way that analogue can't, in addition to the lack of blemishes and dust particles.

Anyway, I won't get into the specific differences between digital and analogue. I've had the pleasure of growing up during a time when digital information has risen to a point that it may entirely replace the need for chemicals and meaningless, manual labor. What does this mean to the economy? This means that less people will be doing remedial tasks (such as running to get more film), and more people will probably end up employed at web companies like www.TigerDirect.com and www.CDW.com.

All this comes down to the availability of information, the simplification of technology, competitive drive between corporations, and dense volumes of products. I suppose this is more of a realization that companies like www.NewEgg.com and its competitor/linker www.PriceWatch.com are moving in on the manual labor industry.

Availability of information takes precedence, being that the move to digital storage was a necessary event to cause price decreases in very expensive technologies. Corporations - being the greedy money-machines they are - helped accelerate drops in values by releasing simpler, smaller, and better forms of technology that are cheaper to make in an effort to manipulate their outstanding gross incomes. Because of the ease and simplification, higher volumes of products can be released in bulk, therefore cutting down on the amount of labor required to distribute them. In the past, distributing these products through retail locations required shipping to a warehouse first, however the retail step has been replaced by direct re-location of products from warehouse to purchaser by means of the website.

My boss purchased an external Seagate hard drive (120 GB) for under $100 off NewEgg.com recently at around 3:00 PM PST. The next day, her hard drive arrived at 10:00 AM via FedEx (Ground shipping), and she started backing up her laptop without a single problem in under five minutes.

No need to drive to a store. No need to talk to representatives. No need to waste time and gas. No extra laborious tasks. Purchase online, process the purchase order, pull it off a shelf, and ship it. Bing, bang, boom, you're done.

Thank you, The Internet, for lowering the prices on products that are necessary for independent and small business artists to get their work done.