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Why so indignant about paying for things? Hardware costs money, services costs money. There are humans working to make these things exist. Just like you (I bet)

Why so indignant about paying for things? Hardware costs money, services costs money. There are humans working to make these things exist. Just like you (I bet).

Domenic_S 11y ago
Things aren't priced based on what they cost to make, they're priced based on what people will pay. To me it feels like being nickel & dimed and honestly I'm sick of everything being a subscription (I've written on this elsewhere). At least with Spotify I still own my computer and headphones if I decide to cancel -- Drop/Nestcams are essentially $200 bricks if the internet goes down or you decide not to pay. My Nest thermostat still works without an internet connection. Cell phones are a good example, you can either pay $0 up front and a larger subscription fee in a contract, or buy the phone up front and pay a smaller, no-contract subscription. Dropcams are the worst of both worlds. (side note: I saw no mention of subscriptions on any of Nestcam's top level pages on their site.) Obviously plenty of others think it's a fine deal, so I'm just the dissenting minority opinion :)
- dguaraglia 11y ago
  Exactly! You are the unhappy minority, and as much as I feel your pain, you are irrelevant business wise (sorry!) I know that I'm personally very irrational when deciding prices: I find paying for HBO Now ($15 a month) an outrage, but will go and spend $20 on a cinema ticket without batting an eyelid. Heck, an Uber ride from the cinema because I'm too lazy is ~$10. Throw in a soda, and every trip to the cinema is about $40. I'm getting around 10 to 15 hours of entertainment out of the HBO subscription, which at ~$1 an hour is a much better deal than going to the movies, but no amount of rationalizing it will make it feel good. There's clearly enough people that consider the $10 a month price "good enough" to be comfortable with it.

Why so indignant about paying for things? Hardware costs money, services costs money. There are humans working to make these things exist. Just like you (I bet).

Domenic_S 11y ago

Things aren't priced based on what they cost to make, they're priced based on what people will pay. To me it feels like being nickel & dimed and honestly I'm sick of everything being a subscription (I've written on this elsewhere). At least with Spotify I still own my computer and headphones if I decide to cancel -- Drop/Nestcams are essentially $200 bricks if the internet goes down or you decide not to pay. My Nest thermostat still works without an internet connection. Cell phones are a good example, you can either pay $0 up front and a larger subscription fee in a contract, or buy the phone up front and pay a smaller, no-contract subscription. Dropcams are the worst of both worlds. (side note: I saw no mention of subscriptions on any of Nestcam's top level pages on their site.) Obviously plenty of others think it's a fine deal, so I'm just the dissenting minority opinion :)

dguaraglia 11y ago
Exactly! You are the unhappy minority, and as much as I feel your pain, you are irrelevant business wise (sorry!) I know that I'm personally very irrational when deciding prices: I find paying for HBO Now ($15 a month) an outrage, but will go and spend $20 on a cinema ticket without batting an eyelid. Heck, an Uber ride from the cinema because I'm too lazy is ~$10. Throw in a soda, and every trip to the cinema is about $40. I'm getting around 10 to 15 hours of entertainment out of the HBO subscription, which at ~$1 an hour is a much better deal than going to the movies, but no amount of rationalizing it will make it feel good. There's clearly enough people that consider the $10 a month price "good enough" to be comfortable with it.