Thought experiment, or a lesson in economics for me.........wheel prices and depths....
Alright. You've got the "tech" into a profile that you're going to go with in the 45 to 88mm range. Let's say. Companies publish and post these pictures. The profiles are not drastically different from a 50 to a 60 to an 88. Let's say you're going to offer a 40, a 60, an 88. Something like that.
The amount of "raw material" isn't drastically different between those, cost wise. The labor should be about the same.
So, why exactly are different depths of same profiles often up to 30, 40, 50% more costly? Across brands. It's way more obvious to me with the name brands also versus "chinabay" stuff. Their stuff is often a smaller % difference.
Is it supply and demand on the sizes and costing of the tooling spread evenly among the individual size versus the entire range? Meaning, does this indicate most people still buy pretty shallow depth wheels?
Or is it the chicken and the egg? More people were initially buying shallower wheels. So the prices became cheaper the shallower it was from that "momentum" in the market. And, we're still there today.
Whereas I betcha a beer that if you "reset" the market overnight and made all three depths from let's say a 30mm 60mm and 88mm all within $100 of each other for an entire wheelset............you'd see more folks buying 60's and 88's than you do today.
Just curious........it makes no sense to me. You don't pay 50% more for a size XL frameset or full bicycle versus a size S. And usually, you pay less for those once the sales hit and new models come out because that's what's left to liquidate.