Westbrook pounds-per-year vs. dollars-per-pound structural-materials correlation

Tom credits Jack Westbrook (MIT alum, GE 1960s) for the log-log plot showing that halving material cost quadruples consumption — slope steeper than iso-market-size.

There is a plot in here which I stole from Jack Westbrook, an MIT grad. He did this in something like the 1960s for General Electric when he worked there. This is pounds per year versus dollars per pound for structural materials. There is a correlation: the less something costs, the more you'll use it. But the interesting thing is that the slope here is greater than the iso-market size. So if you can reduce the cost by a factor of two, in the long run you'll increase the consumption by a factor of four and double your market. That's the long-term view.