It does look cool, but I think the last thing I want on my wall is yet more 'news'.
I was about to say something similar about the price; for that money I can just stick the newspaper itself up on the wall.
OTOH if the display is already 2300EUR, I can't see how the OP can possibly make any money on this, especially with free global shipping, returns, etc, etc.
> OTOH if the display is already 2300EUR, I can't see how the OP can possibly make any money on this, especially with free global shipping, returns, etc, etc.
I don't think they are making money out of this. The display is 2300€ without VAT and the OP is selling them with 2783€ with 21% VAT, so it's exactly the same price.
You may be missing the purpose of this item. The price is high, but it is really not for a picture of the paper. It is for the 'look','old feel, while still clearly being very modern'. In other words, it is trying to be closer to art; so its about being cool in an understated way with unnecessarily expensive things.
Also the fact that it can be anything that fits the aesthetics. I have been drawn to this E-ink concept for many year and other than waiting for a drop in price, I would love it to be available in color and use it to dynamically change between vintage movie poster, hell maybe even pull the one for the movie that I'm watching in my media server.
Other commenter [1] mentioned that there's a subscription required. I found no pricing link, but saw a subscription on the parent page [2] listed at 60 per year. So if we're talking 10 years, then it's closer to 3000.
Depends on the person but it doesn't seem completely impossible - ignoring inflation, $250/yr for <5mins a day (part of an existing delivery route, so no worrying about the commute time except from front door to wall hanging location - realistically could be 2 mins rather than 5 but say 5 to be conservative) is ~30hrs for 365 days, so ~$8/hr.
If they can manage it in 3min rather than 5, it's up to $13.70/hr.
Where I am (UK) I think most newspaper delivery people are aged 13-18, and while there's far less of them about than when I was a kid, I wouldn't be surprised if >50% would be willing to do it to earn an extra $4.80/week.
Of course, you also need to trust the person to come into your house every day, either giving them a key or being available to let them in each time; and while I skipped over inflation it's likely that $250 in ten years has devalued a lot - but maybe you could get a yea for just $150-200/yr at the start to have room for annual increases...
So I don't think your curt dismissal adds much to the conversation.
And that's feasibility thinking about US/UK people, as konart points out in their comment there are countries where $250/yr stretches much further than in wealthy, high-CoL countries.
You have conveniently left out the cost differential for the printed edition, and you are conveniently pricing the trust/risk/hassle that comes with it at 0. And even in this case I doubt the USD 5 pw is the market price, you are basically assuming there is a kid, who values extra pocket money.
The assumption about a kid for pocket money is relevant because a) lots of people doing the job of delivery papers are kids already and b) even if they're not, they're some doing the same job for minimum or less than minimum wage so presumably have similar desire or need for earning money for simple work.
And as mentioned, the person who suggested it being possible was talking about using an existing physical subscription not paying for that within the $2.5k
When I was 13 I delivered newspapers, two of the people with subscriptions on my route, both >70 (not sure exact age), one asked me to take their bins out to the street once a week, the other wanted company and hoped I'd come in for a drink every time. They both offered to pay, my mum wouldn't let me accept money from them but I was still happy to go inside both of their houses each week to be friendly. I'm pretty sure I'd have said yes to hanging the front page every day for whatever was worth $5 of 2023 money back then a week extra!
Sure, most people wouldn't want that, and most people wouldn't want to spend $2500 getting a newspaper they'd already paying for to be hung on the wall. But that's not the same as "no you couldn't [do that at all]".
Yes, it's absurd. But for most people paying this amount of money to get a single page of a newspaper on their wall for however long the screen and cloud service work is also absurd. Despite looking extremely cool, it's a pretty small group of people this is targeting.
Then let them have their fun? I’m not sure what the issue is here. Just seems like folks working on their tight 5 and announcing to everyone how shrewd they are for declaring how dumb they think this product is. Feels like I’m back on reddit already lol
The person you're replying to was just making a sensible observation that was relative to the conversation - I don't see any problem with what they said, nor relevance to Reddit's typical comments.
You on the other hand haven't added to the discussion but instead broke one of HN's guidelines:
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
Maybe worth checking the whole page out, then you can help keep HN comments as high quality as possible to avoid other people feeling the need to compare to Reddit! <3
We all make childish or otherwise foolish comments sometime (most of us probably quite often - I definitely do), worth trying not to as often as possible but no big deal slipping up :)
Also, in my country minimal salary this year is 180$/month. So I can realistically find a person to change newspapers full time every workday for a year, for those money. I rather think there will be a a queue of candidates for this, as compared to loading cargo or or giving out flyers on the street for the same sum. :)
I think you've overlooked the realistic useful lifetime of the product, and how long the novelty factor would last -- if you price it according to that duration I think that you'd find the hourly rate to be far higher.
Heh I just had a bored few minutes outside with a cigarette, but I didn't find writing that comment interesting enough to want to turn it into a new career :)
I think you're massively underestimating a) the amount of poverty even in the US (or whatever country you're thinking of) yet alone in places where the mean salary is only a couple of hundred bucks, and b) the limited options for making more money for the type of person who does paper rounds (often but not always <18yo, but always in a situation where they need/want the work of delivering newspapers for a low hourly rate and for likely less than a few hours a day).
My 13 y/o son delivers newspapers, he earns £24 per week for 6 mornings. He delivers around 16 newspapers a day. (£24/16)/6 days = £0.25 per paper.
365 days per year at £0.25 per day is £91.25 per year.
The most popular printed newspaper is the Daily Mail, I have no idea what the wholesale cost is, but the retail price is £30.33 per month So, worst case is £363.96 per year - but my expectation is that it is half that.
$2500 USD is currently £1946.66
£91.25 + £363.96 = £455.21
So, you totally can get the paper delivered by a 13 year old boy for ~4.25 years, by which time he'll retire off to college. However, if my premise is that wholesale cost of the paper is half what I thought it is, then 10 years sounds about right.
EDIT: I checked with him, and if you live close enough he'd be willing to come in and stick it on your wall every day, as long as he can get home in time for school.
I live in India. My newspaper costs ₹230 a month. That's ₹2,760 a year and ₹27,600 for a decade (not factoring inflation). At today's conversion rates, that's $333.58 for entire decade.
If I pay the remaining amount of $2166.42 to the delivery person over 10 years, that's about ₹1493 per month, which is over 6 times the cost of newspaper subscription. For that amount, yeah, they'll be happy to hang the paper on a wall.
I've just done that in reply to your previous comment, but will add here: they said "pay the person who delivers my daily newspaper", so it's $2500 on top of an existing delivery, not $2500 including paying for a new subscription & deliveries.
$250 is a tad lower than the median monthly salary in India. I bet you can find hundreds of millions of people willing to earn a cool $0.7 a day doing something as easy as this. That’s a meal or two for a poor person.
With millions of people living in conditions where even safe drinkable water is not something you are guaranteed to get - 250$/year equivalent seems wild.
