[MJKoski]

Yes, Software industry is nasty business (mine as well). Modular architecture lessens the costs of removing something but not many systems are built that way right now.

[Kunzite]

I am a software engineer; the problems we're seeing here are present everywhere else - just more visible.
This is also making me less susceptible to assumptions and guesswork (because it's proven, over and over again, how those doesn't work).

[Class A]

Your implicit claim, OTOH, was that they're the same.

No, it wasn't my claim.

I never ever talked about the Pentax 70-200/2.8.

It is you who needs to be more careful when reading.

And you need to understand when you write "incurs a cost" without further elaboration -- i.e., acknowledging that there could be cost savings that, overall, result in a cheaper production of the variant -- people will naturally interpret you as stating that creating the variant comes at a cost, i.e., that the producing the variant is more expensive than the regular version. Accept it or don't, but don't blame others for not understanding what you really mean when you don't actually say what you mean.

And regarding picking an example for a lens that has been offered in K-mount without a premium, you haven't explained what was wrong about my initial one (the lens being old is not a reason) and I'm choosing a different one by giving you the choice. That's right., you yourself could pick loads of other examples. There are so many more examples of different versions costing then same than the other way round. Perhaps you don't want to pick one of those many examples. Fair enough.

Let's agree to disagree on this topic. Perhaps on another topic we can see eye to eye again. I'm unconvinced it is worth the effort to try harder to come to an agreement on this particular topic.

[Kunzite]

The implicit claim is that it's as easy to sell cheap a MY 2008 Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, as a 15-30 f/2.8; because they're both "in low demand". I addressed that by pointing out the higher initial production volumes for a much more expensive 70-200 f/2.8 - the Pentax D FA*.

You're wrong, I don't have to expand my claims beyond what I can actually claim in good faith. This is just you rejecting a fact, for no good reason.
OTOH you're fine with speculation in a certain direction.

There are so many things wrong with your Tamron 70-200 example. Being old, from a time when 3rd-party makers (Sigma 2007, Tamron 2008) were making K-mount lenses. Being a pre-crisis lens. Being over 8 years old, which means the current price is heavily discounted. Being over 8 years old, thus launched in very different market conditions (e.g. K-mount user base). Possibly being out of production. Just because it was possible in 2008 it doesn't mean a different lens, at a different price point would be possible today.
As I said, your example is begging the question: in which way is it relevant to the D FA 15-30mm?

By agreement, do you mean me giving up on the facts I know and fully adopt your opinion?

[clackers]

. So, 20/1.4 PART (Pentax ART) costs $2699 with added weather sealing and removed OS...wait...what OS.

Something like this could of course happen!

Whoever makes these primes, they won't be cheap.

[RobA_Oz]

Fact is, none of us know the actual cost factors.

You are assuming that Tamron is exactly between a "jobbing-shop" and a fully automated production line where producing a variant means changing a couple of parameters on the control unit. There are factories where essentially the parts come in at one end and the finished product comes out at the other end, fully packaged, ready for shipment, without one bit of human intervention in between. I'm not saying Tamron has such an approach and in particular lens production often involves some manual steps, but we don't know when these steps occur and whether some of them can be omitted for the OS-less version, making it a cheaper run overall.

You may have a point, you may not. Let's refrain from claiming to be the bearer of truth.

I did quite explicitly say that I had no knowledge of Tamron's production regime, so that bearer of truth claim doesn't lie with me and I'm not saying you said that it did. However, if we are to have a discussion about where costs arise in a production process, it pays to think about what might constitute that process.

My contribution here was to fill out the discussion in general, not to fall on one side or the other.

After all, argument is a series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not merely gainsaying the other party, as you may recall from the little satirical excerpt I posted earlier. Not that I'm saying you did or didn't do either of those things.