Orange Bomb's Sketch Pad

If you pay attention, you might actually learn something.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Can't save shit captian!

So today somebody directs me to this article and since a flame war has already started in the comment section of the article, and for the sake of NOT adding more fire to something that doesn't need it, I'm not going to give you a link to it.

Yet the basic premise of the article that we, as consumers, should buy subsidized technology (technology that costs less than what it takes to make it), regardless of cost or what you actually need, because every time we do so, we get back FREE bits and pieces of hardware! Even though there might be a way to pay less and still get the same results, we should be taking advantage of this subsidized stuff because the companies are giving us FREE hardware we didn't pay for, and may not even need, YAY! Hell, you may be spending up to $100 to $200 EXTRA on the hardware covered, but at least you got some FREE useless hardware that you probably won't need. Yeah that was pretty much the point of the entire article. Oh, and he used a Latin phrase in the article, fancy, isn't it? And all the more reason that I feel that this poster deserves the beat down their getting. Come on, they idea was ridicules enough, but trying to make it seem intellectual and well thought out by using the Latin phrase was what sealed the deal; they were just asking for a big Internet Punch right in the face.

Think about this for a moment, you’re going to pay more than $100 for something that has a whole bunch of extras that you won't use, or will never need. Yet your supposed to buy it because your getting back free hardware; since the company losses money when you buy a subsidized product. What - the - fuck? Something tells me that paying $100 EXTRA for something that you don't even need in the first place it isn't exactly free.

Secondly, why should you buy something that you don't want in the first place!? Because you're getting more useless extras than what you pay for? What sort of shit reason is that? Are you the sort of person who never passes up a 2 for 1 deal or something? Listen when I go into a store to buy a DVD just for the movie, I don't hock out extra money for the extended two disc version with all those extras, because I just want the fucking movie! If I don't care about the Director's Commentary, Blooper Real, or whatever the hell else might be on there, I'm not going to shell out extra cash to get the DVD that has it, since I'm only buying it to watch the movie.

Thirdly, just because something costs less than what it takes to make it doesn't mean we should be taking advantage of it. Especially when it costs more than something that is pretty much exactly the same shit and is the same quality; only it costs a lot less. What sort of American ideal is that, if you pay more for something it is always inherently better than what costs less? It's like that moment from Dead Poet's Society:

Student (reciting): "If poem B is larger than poem A, than poem B is the better poem"
John Keating: "Rip it! Be gone, J. Evans-Pritchard, PhD!"

Are you honestly that insecure about people thinking your poor that you pay, a lot, extra for stuff that you don't even need, just to prove to them that you can afford shit? Listen, when I pay extra for my Insta-Noodles instead of Ramen I know what the hell I'm paying extra for, and I'm paying extra for something I want, not something that I don't need. When I pay $10 for noodles and soda at one restaurant, instead of $3 on McDonald's "food" the chefs make clear why their food costs seven dollars extra. Yet when you pitch out more than $100 extra on something that is pretty much the same product as everything else, only it's being sold for more than everything else; how is the fact that it's being sold for less than what it takes to manufacture it, make it such a better product?

It's like when I go shopping for paints, there are these little, dinky, travel-sized tubes of paint that can run into the $11 range depending upon what color you need. While sitting next to it are these Jumbo sized tubes of paint (larger than a tube of tooth-paste), that have the exact same stuff and they run for about $9 regardless of color. I don't buy the little ones because the cost represents something extra that I'm not getting with the large sized tubes; I know that each tube is exactly the same, save for one difference, their size. Also I purchase the larger sized ones not because of the deal, but mostly because I get extremely short-changed when I buy little sized tubes of paint. For I'm just curious as to what demands a 5 dollar increase in price over a change in shade from Primary Red to Red-with-just-enough-yellow-thrown-in-to-
make-it-look-like-a-completly-different-color-but-only-if-you-squint.

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