I know that we have discussed this before and that there are differing opinions on the best approach yet I remain convinced that when we find a way to coordinate the bidding activity for CPs we will achieve the best possible price for PD resources in Logos.
Starting with the premise that once Logos has determined the cost of production for a resource, let's assume an example of $1,000, that it does not matter to them whether that is achieved with a single $1,000 bid or a thousand bids of $1 and assuming that the typical Logos user would rather pay a price closer to $1 than $1,000 the logical conclusion is that the more people who bid the lower the price will be!
I appreciate that I have stated the obvious here but when observing the different approaches to bidding I am not sure that our bidding behaviour always reflects a clear understanding of this basic fact. I see the current bid process as a three stage one as follows:
Phase 1 - initial bidding and price trend setting. This phase seems quite chaotic and appears to be driven by two groups of people. First there are those who desperately want the specific resource in Logos and who typically are willing to pay a relatively high price for the resource in comparison to others. The second group are the CP addicts, I am in this group, who bid on most resources based on a perceived value which is normally lower than the first group. At the end of this Phase, the duration of which varies from resource to resource, an "expected" price emerges the level of this price being determined by the balance of the different types of bidder.
Phase 2 - once the price has settled the resource then seems to start to attract a third type of bidder. As a generalisation these bidders seem to need the "expected" price to have settled before they are willing to bid and I have a feeling most of these only bid if they are happy with the "expected" price. During this phase the resource edges its way to the 100% mark at the "expected" price with occasional surges of activity as the benefits of a specific resource are advocated in the Forums. Some days, weeks, months or years later the resource finally hits 100% and is ready to go into production.
Phase 3 - as soon as the resource is live we have a flurry of activity to recruit as many bidders as possible because it is currently at this point that we remember the importance of having lots of bidders if we want a low price so the focus is now on getting as many bidders as we can in the short period between a project reaching 100% and the final close.
My suggestion is simple, we should work together and modify our bidding behaviour so that the initial focus is on recruiting bidders and once we have a significant number of bidders on board we should then focus on the final price for the resource. The way that I see this working is as follows.
Phase 1 - follow a simple rule, if you have any level of interest in the resource place a bid at the MINIMUM the CP permits. This will set the "expected" price at the lowest possible level. At the same time we should still decide what we are really willing to pay for the resource, as this value will matter later in the process.
Phase 2 - the resource must now attract as many bidders as possible, it will need to be promoted but the "expected" price should be a real bargain and the typical phase 2 bidder above should find it easy to sign up. The challenge that I see is that not all resources will reach 100% during this phase using this approach but with the right level of promotion we should be able to get to the 80/90% mark and we will have recruited a lot of bidders on the way.
Phase 3 - once we have a large number of interested bidders and assuming that we have not crossed the line at the minimum bid we are now ready to adjust our bidding based on the bidding scale provided by Logos and the perceived value of the resource. Assuming that we can get to the 80/90% mark at the level of the lowest bid a small increase should enable us to get each resource at a bargain price.
I recognise that this approach will have flaws just like the current one and that there will inevitably be those we will be reluctant to increase their bid once they have set it. However I genuinely believe that to get the best possible price from CP we need to increase the number of bidders and that we will not achieve this unless we work together to make it happen.
