Selling open-hardware tools

<p>A possible <a class="wikilink" href="/open_hardware_business_model/">open hardware business model</a> is to simply sell the product. <a class="wikilink" href="/open_hardware/">Open hardware</a>, or not, selling something may be the easiest way of generating income[<a class="litnote tooltip" href="/literature/@pearce2017">@pearce2017<span class="tooltiptext">Emerging Business Models for Open Source Hardware</span></a>]. However, many <a class="wikilink" href="/open_hardware_projects_focus_on_cutting_costs/">open hardware projects focus on cutting costs</a>, and this is a mistake. In many cases, lowering costs is associated to a lower quality. Being open does not guarantee being cheap, nor the other way around. </p> <p>If the plan is to sell cheaper than the competition, the open nature of the project may just be a hindrance, since it is likely that bigger suppliers of parts won't want their designs becoming publicly available (this is the case of the Raspberry Pi, for example).</p> <p>It is important to remember that there are other factors beyond <a class="wikilink" href="/artificially_generated_scarcity/">artificially generated scarcity</a>, such as <a class="wikilink" href="/being_first_to_market/">being first to market</a>, <a class="wikilink" href="/the_value_of_a_brand/">the value of a brand</a>, or <a class="wikilink" href="/the_value_of_a_community/">the value of a community</a>.</p>