Cables - a rant.

[andrewducker]

The other day, an lj friend* was ranting about the price of HDMI cables at Richer Sounds. Pretty justified, as they charge £15 for a cable you can get at Amazon for a fiver.

Today I was in Currys (and PC World) as a break from clothes shopping with meaningrequired, and thought I'd check out their prices for cables.

They started at £40, and went up to £100.

Now, checking their website, it seems like they have cheaper ones, at pretty reasonable prices. But if you're buying a new TV and Blu-Ray player (or whatever) then you're going to want cables to go with them, and chances are that if you're ignorant you're going to get suckered into paying over the odds and buying one of these. Or if the sales people really get to you, splashing out on something like this.

Frankly, I'd like to find a way of making this kind of thing illegal**. If you can't demonstrate an actual difference in the picture being transmitted by the cable over one costing less than half its price then you shouldn't be allowed to bloody well sell it.

*I've just remembered who it was, but it was flocked, so I'm not naming them. They can feel free to claim responsibility in the comments if they like.

**Ok, I'm exaggerating somewhat. If people want to spend their money on stupid things then it's up to them. I'd settle for crucifying*** any sales person who tries to tell you that you get a better signal through them than you do through the bog standard ones that you can buy for a fiver.

***Publically. In front of the store. With rusty nails.

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It's the same in pubs - they make all their big money out of selling 2p pints of coke for £1.50.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

and tea. I can't be bothered figuring out how much a tea bag and hot water costs, but I'm certain it isn't £2.25

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

The main product a pub or coffee shop sells you is a seat to sit down on in the warmth, that costs the same to provide irrespective of what you drink. Similarly the cost of the staff to clean up after you and make the drink doesn't change. The material cost of beer is about 70p more than that of coke or tea so beer should cost about 70p more per drink. Of course if you follow this through to it's logical extent halves sold as part of a round should cost only 35p less than the full pint but it seems that the customers object.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

yeah, I get that, which is why I'm perfectly willing to go to Tea Tree Tea and pay silly money for tea & cake

the price for a teabag in a pub still seems *slightly* excessive though

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I recall a conversation with the manager of a cafe my school/ uni chums and I used to go to. We'd grabbed a big table with comfortable sofas and all ordered coffees after a boozey night out the night before and one of us apologised for blocking one of his best tables.

He replied that a) we were regulars during the week when it was quiet and b) he made more of a mark up on a coffee than on beer so he was happy for us to sit and drink coffee all day long if we wanted. Which we did.

There is a reasonable amount of tax on alcoholic drink and I wonder if this masks the price of soft drnks. If you took the 60p of excise duty and VAT on excise duty of the cost of a pint of beer and then compared the price of that with a coffee or a pint of coke I think customers might not like the new price differential.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Agreed, I've always felt that the main product is table rent.