You have developed a small business selling "Price-It-All", a software package that allows investors to evaluate complex financial derivatives. After devoting a year of your time (financed by a spouse who works for Goldman Sachs) to this effort, you have written two versions that are sold as two separate programs: One evaluates options; the other evaluates futures.
After a bit of test marketing, you are sure that there are two potential types of customers for your software: doctors, and auto mechanics. They value (have a maximum willingness to pay for) each of the versions, as indicated below. Depending on the price, a customer may buy both versions, only one, or neither. There are equal numbers of each type of potential customers. The marginal costs of producing and selling the programs are very close to zero.
Options Futures
Doctors $200 $80
Auto mechanics $120 $150
1. If you can determine the occupation of each customer (perhaps you insist that each show you a business card), what price or prices should you charge? Explain.
2. If you cannot ascertain a customer's occupation (perhaps the State of New York forbids asking, and you don't want to move to New Jersey), what price or prices should you charge? Explain.
3. Suppose instead that the marginal costs of producing and selling each version were $100. In this case, if you cannot ascertain a customer's occupation, what price or prices should you charge? Explain.