Cost versus information: making the trade-off explicitly

Cost versus information: making the trade-off explicitly Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did.

Asking about cost versus information directly, because I have read four threads on it and each answered a slightly different question.

The version I want answered is the narrow one: given the method stated below, is the result within what anyone else has seen? I am not asking what it means yet.

Method, numbers and the two assumptions I am aware of making are below. If the assumptions are wrong that is more useful to me than agreement.

The opening post answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

The honest cost comparison is a home kit against a single independent submission. For most people the second answers the question and the first answers a different, smaller one.

What you can use home tests for: confirmation that a solution contains peptide (as opposed to being saline alone), rough screening for very different compounds (semaglutide versus totally unrelated compound). What you cannot use them for: precise purity assessment or verification that the identity is correct.

Reading it again, the caveat matters more than the finding.

Ultraviolet absorbance at 280 nanometres estimates concentration for peptides containing aromatic residues and gives nothing for peptides that do not. Knowing which yours is comes first.

I have left out the parts I could not verify.

Worth separating two things that the opening post runs together.

Reconstitution behaviour is a legitimate home observation. A cake that will not dissolve, a solution that hazes, visible particulate — all are real information and all are free.

Post #5 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

What you can use home tests for: confirmation that a solution contains peptide (as opposed to being saline alone), rough screening for very different compounds (semaglutide versus totally unrelated compound). What you cannot use them for: precise purity assessment or verification that the identity is correct.

Right — I had this wrong and I am glad to have read it before it mattered.