With hardware you will always have higher per unit costs for more niche product lines due to weaker economies of scale.
It’s true for hardware products that are free (as in freedom) or apple products (e.g. Vision Pro).
Not much we can do about this, short of a revolution in 3D printing and distribution systems (you will never be able to 3D print all components; e.g. semiconductors).
You’re also going to have higher costs from a company offering something open and free, because they’re not hiding costs from you. Proprietary hardware vendors consistently use methods to hide cost from consumers. Oem licensing deals, update costs, making up the money on the repair side. List goes on. End result? In this “free” market, a proprietary company will always be able to offer a lower selling price.
To add to the list: planned obsolescence (eg closed sauce drivers in case of PCs), “sponsors” lowering your initial purchase costs by installing bloatware apps (that most people then just keep - or like with phones need at last a PC to uninstall), ads, etc.
(I assume by OEM licences you meant more hardware side.)
With hardware you will always have higher per unit costs for more niche product lines due to weaker economies of scale.
It’s true for hardware products that are free (as in freedom) or apple products (e.g. Vision Pro).
Not much we can do about this, short of a revolution in 3D printing and distribution systems (you will never be able to 3D print all components; e.g. semiconductors).
You’re also going to have higher costs from a company offering something open and free, because they’re not hiding costs from you. Proprietary hardware vendors consistently use methods to hide cost from consumers. Oem licensing deals, update costs, making up the money on the repair side. List goes on. End result? In this “free” market, a proprietary company will always be able to offer a lower selling price.
To add to the list: planned obsolescence (eg closed sauce drivers in case of PCs), “sponsors” lowering your initial purchase costs by installing bloatware apps (that most people then just keep - or like with phones need at last a PC to uninstall), ads, etc.
(I assume by OEM licences you meant more hardware side.)