Fanmail: Nothing for nothing

On Sep 17, 2007, at 12:50 PM, Larry wrote:

So what you’r saying is if I send you nothing I will still get nothing. Kewl!

I responded thusly:

Hi Larry,

I was shocked to receive your letter. We are not used to being spoken to in this way, even by our (nearly) dear nothing unthusiast core group. But what you say is true, in a sense. So I must address this topic in a way that is not only truthful, heartfelt and sincere, but in a way that is at the same time vague, meaningless and (most importantly) still makes it seem reasonable for people buy nothing from us.

First of all, we never said that you can get nothing without spending money. If you want nothing, you will be expected to pay for "it". If you find that you already have nothing lying around and would like to use "it", then you are probably just noticing our "overflow stock" or "underflow stock" or rather " ", as we prefer to call it. Since the entire universe is within our (redundant overlapping) warehouses, and nothing "is" almost everywhere (although not always in the purest form) your home may be used as one of our storage areas. Be careful, it is commonly found that when nothing is stored in this manner, "it" is highly polluted with anything from dust bunnies to aromatic essences. Although this "nothing" may have nothing in it, there's certainly something more to it. We pride ourselves on not trying to get you the finest quality nothing available, mostly because nothing isn't available in the same sense that any thing would be. Certainly nothing is available from us, but not in the same way a tee-shirt might be. For example, we sell tee-shirts, but we haven't been making tee-shirts lately. So there is a demand, but not really much of a supply. In the case of nothing, there is both an infinite supply and a modest demand, on the other hand, there is no supply at all and a modest demand. The laws of supply and demand indicate that on the one count nothing should be very inexpensive because "it" doesn't do anything, and there is very little demand for "it". On the other count, there is a modest demand and no supply at all, so it should be nearly infinitely expensive. The problem with a product that is infinitely expensive is that it is very difficult to close the sale on it. Now imagine there wasn't even a product. That's the dilemma that confronted our marketeers when they sat down with us at the very large, yet seemingly infinitely small table that we all sit around to talk about nothing. As a side note, you should really see this table, it is like something (or almost nothing) that would be dreamt up by the right halves M.C. Escher's and Salvador Dali's brains if they could somehow have been functionally fused together.

Anyway, you are probably wondering what the outcome of that discussion was. The two prong answer was simple:

#1 "Do Nothing". Live the product. Be the product. Promote the product in everything you do. Since all of these ideas were impossible, we chose to use the concept as a general jumping off point. We really did nothing. Well, not really, but in the sense of not promoting nothing and doing as little as possible, we sorta did nothing.

#2 Nothing costs $5. It was that simple. What is a high enough price that people who think there is an infinite supply of nothing are almost guaranteed not to buy "it"? What is a low enough price that the people who think nothing is anything will believe the price is too good to be true? Well, as you already know, the answer is "Five Bucks".

It turned out to be a huge success, and an almost insignificant failure! Countless millions of viewers later, we still haven't been promoting ourselves or our products (or lack thereof). Sure, we waste our valuable time. But sales are scarce to the point that many think our sole purpose is to spread good will, which makes little sense to me, but I can't argue with the market. Well, actually I can and will argue with the market...

What was the point I was trying to make? Oh, that's right, nothing. Please, buy nothing. If you don't buy "it" you may have it, but you'll never get "it". Or do you need some kind of multi-million dollar ad campaign to convince you that you need to pay for nothing?

Thank you for your interest in nothing. Peace off!