It’s amazing how much a price can affect the perception of a brand. A little while ago on SmarterMarkets, I commented on how the price of the new iPhone could possibly hurt its standing as a premium product. When a product can actually demand a price premium, making its price competitive in the market (lowering the price to something more reasonable) calls into question the blind respect customers gave in the first place. “Wow, the iPhone I just spent $399 on isn’t actually worth that much?”

Just yesterday, a friend pointed out to me that people are auctioning off the ability to follow them on Twitter through eBay. Twitter is a free service that allows anyone and everyone to follow frequent “updates” about you through SMS text messaging, website plug-ins, or email. ANYONE can sign up to follow you FOR FREE. Oddly enough, the man selling this right for $10 each is actually making money by identifying himself as a “Twitter superstar.”

Here’s his hilarious note that follows the eBay listing:

Dear Friend,

It would be foolish of you to go to www.twitter.com/jasonmoffatt and follow me there
because we both know it will mean so much more if you give me $10 to follow me.

Let’s face it, the idea of paying me $10 to be my Twitter friend is a way smarter idea
then trying to follow one of these obvious links to my Twitter page and waste away hours
of your time when you could easily just Paypal the $10.

And I promise to spend it on nice Micro Brews.

And hey, it’s the American Way isn’t it? or maybe it was the Canadian Way?

Either way, Strange Brew was a kick ass movie.

So, I’m the inventor of ADD, ADHD, and that makes for really awesome Twits.

By now you can easily see that $10 is a drop in the bucket for all the comedy, action,
and the occasional smart money making nuggets that could help you buy at least a
Snickers or something with our profits.

So hurry now because I’m probably be going to raise the price to follow me on Twitter
to about $100 soon.

Because as you can see, this auction has a ton of design skills and this takes some serious
time and effort. Heck, I may have to jack up the price to $500 or more.

While supplies last, you can follow me at Twitter or you can be lame.

Cheers,

Jason Moffatt

The friend who forwarded me this listing just laughed. At first, so did I. Then I noticed that the number of available “products” has been steadily declining. People are actually paying for a free service! While I find it mildly disgusting that Jason is so proud of himself over this, it demonstrates the power premium pricing has over the market.

Just wait, next we’ll be paying more for brand-label bottles of filtered water than we do for gasoline.

Oh, wait …