Complements are interesting because they can affect the way companies price and market their products. If a company knows that their product is a complement to another product, they can adjust their pricing strategy to take advantage of that. For instance, a company that sells printers might lower the price of their printers to encourage people to buy them, knowing that they'll make up for it by selling more ink cartridges.
But how does this work in real life? Well, let's consider another example - smartphones and apps. If you buy a new smartphone, you're probably going to want to download some apps to go with it, right? The demand for apps is directly tied to the demand for smartphones, making them complements.
This relationship can have some pretty cool effects. For example, if a company that makes smartphones wants to increase the demand for their product, they might try to attract more app developers to create apps for their platform. This can create a virtuous cycle, where more apps attract more smartphone buyers, which in turn attracts more app developers.
