You are starting to realize where some of the $ being recouped by the commercial products came from.



R&D is one of those invisible categories....like pharmaceuticals...people are outraged that a little pill that costs $1 generically is $50 for the brand name.

The brand name company spent 7-10 years developing the drug, doing FDA trials, etc...and then has to recoup all of that $ (Typically a minimum of a $ half billion) investment...within the ~ 7 year window remaining in their patent protection period.

To make it WORTH them spending all that time and $ in the first place, they want a ROI that makes sense, hence the $50/pill to get paid enough to be worth it.

When the protection expires, a generic company can simply MAKE the pills, w/o needing any research or trials, etc...and CAN sell it for $1 and make money doing it.


Same with other products...someone has to design not only the light, but the machinery to make it, and the packaging and distribution, etc all tweak each other.

If YOU make a light, you DON'T need to sweat details like that...and you figure if a change needs to be made after seeing what works/doesn't...you'd just take it off the roof, fix it, and put it back (Rinse/Repeat)...until its the way you like it.

THEY need to make sure its ALREADY that way before it gets put into a box.




For me, this sort of project is great though, because the satisfaction of doing it myself can outweigh the disadvantages of it being better but from a mass producer.