It’s late on Saturday night.

I’ve been reading about a few more ‘million dollar’ launches.

My thoughts turned to an interesting perspective.

In some parts of the world, a thousand dollars is BIG money. A child’s life can be saved by a heart operation that costs $3,000.

In other places, the same $3,000 would barely feed and clothe a family for a month. And a few folks would blow that amount away on a dinner party.

For many years, I have enjoyed the leverage and arbitrage of earning in dollars and spending in rupees - which gives me the benefit of a 40x to 45x multiple for earnings.

And so, maybe as a ‘disadvantage’, I have never been enamored about going after 6-figure - or higher - launch roll-outs.

It has also been easier for me to empathize with people who think long and hard about making a buying decision on a $10 ebook or $19.95 program.

And I’ve found it harder to price my own products at a high dollar figure.

I cringe when I hear about trusting folks getting scammed out of multi-thousand dollar investments.

I thrill with those who are ecstatic over HUGE pay-days of $10,000 - or even $1,000.

I wince when I see price-tags on information products that have 4 digits, or five.

I wonder what drives the people who sell them - and the ones that buy.

Especially when the person in either camp comes from the ‘wrong’ group - like a buyer who pays for a high-ticket (US dollars) program… in rupees.

Or a seller who collects payment in dollars, and targets this buyer.

Do they take the buyer’s circumstances into consideration?

Print book publishers do, y’know. Indian editions of even best-sellers are not priced at $19.95. They are at Rs.200 or Rs.300 (that’s $5 to $7 apiece).

If manufacturers of physically delivered products, that have a hard cost attached to creation, work this way, how is it that vendors of digital goods (with ZERO incremental cost for creation/publishing) justify ‘universally identical’ pricing?

Savvy marketers might argue it is ‘intelligent’ pricing strategy - and is based on what the market will bear.

Being on the lee-ward side of the dollar-rupee exchange deal, I see it differently. The financial strain on, say, an Indian buyer charged US dollar prices is MANY TIMES higher than the same pricing on, for instance, a buyer who lives in the US.

So does it really matter if you make (or spend) millions, or thousands, or just hundreds?

When hundreds can mean wealth, are millions really a worthy goal?

Or even a necessary one?

What do you think?