Get in On the Ground Floor

There was an iPhone app that was on the iPhone store for a few days that basically displayed a picture of a jewel on your screen. It cost $1,000, the sole purpose of it was to be able to say "I'm rich enough to afford this", the guy sold several thousand of them before it was pulled from the store.

My main regret is that I'm not nefarious enough to think of these things, they are just so completely foreign to my way of thinking :doh:
 
Discussing with a co-worker and there appears to be a whole economic theory around this (well there are several theories, this appears to be the closest match): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

The reference for the "I Am Rich" app: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich I was off on the number sold, but there appear to be several derivative apps that have sold a bunch as well so :doh: :huh:

I suspect most of us are more directly familiar with seeing this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect
Interesting and somewhat bizarre other theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
 
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