If you feel it is too expensive to pay for someone else to make them for you then make them yourself. Paparazzi has more options and more customizations than any other project in the World. This is a great thing.
About prices, simple economics. The cost of living varies around the World so prices and wages vary around the world. In all these years I have not been aware of anyone getting rich selling Paparazzi things. I can truly just speak for myself and say that I just sell them for not much more than what it costs to pay the bills and continue to exist as a company. A company has many expenses, taxes, financial obligations that must be passed along.
I would encourage people to consider the economics behind the scenes as you purchase and suggest alternatives purely based on cost. Anyone who says it is "difficult" to get Paparazzi items is incorrectly using the word difficult. It is no more difficult to purchase a Lisa/M, KroozSD or Umarim/NavGo than buying any other autopilot.
Why do you excuse yourself for prices? If you offer things, you set the prices and that's it. You know what your costs are. If no one wants to buy at these prices, then that's life. If people can get the Apogee from China for a third of the price, I am pretty sure people will buy there.
Paparazzi was once the only project out there. Now there are several. Some are good examples of how prices drop and resources rise when collectively members support with their purchases those who support the project.
Competition is good but remember that unrestricted capitalism at the far end of the scale is a monopoly (i.e. the ultimate goal of that purely capitalistic business).
Yes competition is very good, otherwise we wouldnt have computers and microelectronics and nothing.
But why do you fear monopolies? Mircosoft had a monopoly for a few years, who cared? Now they are more or less obsoleted by Android and Linux and Google and so on. Mircosoft is struggling to exist on.
Nobody could force you to buy MS, and for a while AltaVista and Yahoo had a monopoly, and nowadays they are more or less forgotten. Who knows what comes next after Google, which has a monopoly on search now, and what comes after Facebook?
Intel dominated the market and all of a sudden billions of ARMs are sold.... ebay basically has a monopoly and I am happy they exist. 10 years ago it was much harder to get many things, now I can order things from all over the world. Without ebay I wouldnt even know someone is trying to sell what I want.
The only monopolies you should fear is the government monopolies, because government can force you. No company can force you to use their services. But public schooling for example has no real alternative and no matter how bad government runs them, we are stuck with their service that has no competition and just wastes our money.
No matter how bad roads and infrastructure are run by government, we have to pay.
One company is almost there now with another project and already changes are evident (as all Monopolies will ultimately do).
What company do you mean?
If government wasnt taxing companies so heavily, you would have a much easier life.
So that is my 2 cents to this question of free market and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Sadly many people have forgotten what America was all about. I want the real America back.
Cheers,
Alex