I understand cost of goods.....I own my own my own business and deal with that issue every day. Not saying they should cost $1 but $50 for that bracket is crazy, don't care what it is made of. For $100 I will have new ones machined from billet aluminum, my buddy owns a machine shop and will do them for me. Again, I understand cost but you have to admit, $50 a piece is a little steep.
Today, most parts like this are "cheap plastic". They are typically made of recycled soda bottles and milk jugs, not virgin pvc pellets. And I too understand hot injection molding very well. The mold was cast more than 30 years, in my estimation, and has more than paid for itself by now. Now before anyone goes off about a companies rights..blah blah blah, the guy/gal at the machine watching it blow out hundreds/hr is making minimum wage, and is bored out of his/her skull. So are they making an innovative, new product? No. Is there any design cost to recover? No, it was recoverd years ago. That piece lilkely costs no more than .25 to manufacture, labor included. So 50bucks is steep. How do I know the guy is bored out of his skull? I used to be that guy, watching the machine blow out hundreds of pieces/hr, wearing the dunce cap, trying to entertain the other bored-to-tears workers making barely more than minimum wage, watching key chain parts fall out of the mold into the hopper, pulling a handful out every 15 mins to make su....zzzzzzz
Yes, it is "cheap plastic". Recycled plastic is used in more products than you can imagine today, and the manufacturers do not have to disclose it's content in products such as this, and I will bet one to a hundred, this is 100% recycled content, and it is so cheap, because it is gathered en masse from us, and we forget about it's uses until a discussion such as this comes up.
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