Originally Posted by
canklecat
As another poster mentioned, R&D is expensive. And this is a very niche market, especially at the top tier of bike frames. There's no way to make relatively minor improvements cost effective, especially in a market with so many anonymous makers given pretty much free rein to rip off other people's intellectual property.
I think this is probably ignored too much.
I recently met with a machine shop to have them build me a custom part. After discussing what I needed, we started talking pricing. It was going to cost A LOT more than I wanted to pay. Their response essentially was:
Yeah, it doesn't cost a lot make this, but the design and set up is expensive. Once we make one, we can make hundreds, no problem, but the first one is the expensive one.
If there were a large enough market for the part I want, I could have had them make a bunch, then sold them to off set my initial set up cost, but there isn't.