On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:45:42 +0000, Eero Ahonen wrote:

> True (and that kind of business model is getting alarmful usual), but
> they probably wouldn't have promised even to send the CD.

True.

The thing that I wonder is why so many businesses seem to think that they 
can't (or shouldn't) make pricing simple, but instead have to follow the 
US mobile carrier model of making it impossible to figure out what 
something actually costs until you're locked into a contract.

With physical products, it's pretty easy to do that.  It's when you start 
dealing with intangibles ('services' or 'software as a service' or 
'software as a subscription' which is becoming more popular).

I periodically go in and review my options for my mobile phone.  I spend 
about $87 a month for 450 minutes (which I never use, but it's the 
smallest option), data service (which I use heavily with my Blackberry).  
I don't use international calling and rarely use texting.  But when I 
first took over the account (my employer had paid it in the past), I saw 
that I was paying for a data plan that included unlimited text messages 
and ALSO paying $5/month for - yep - unlimited text messages.  I was 
paying for international roaming (which was supposed to be temporary when 
I went to Barcelona a few years ago), international calling, and then a 
separate cost for calling to Canada.

Or take something like "Software Assurance" - which I know from MS is 
optional but from other companies isn't.  If I'm pricing a product out to 
do a comparison, a single price makes sense.  But add in something like 
"mandatory maintenance" which is not part of the product cost, and now 
it's more difficult to compare apples to apples.  If "maintenance" is 
mandatory, then include it in the product price!

Same sort of thing with this relatively recent scam of "extended 
warranties" - every time I'm offered one, I suggest that if the product 
quality is such that I might *need* an extended warranty, then maybe I'm 
not interested in the product, because I want to purchase products that 
are of high quality to start with.  If I'm buying something that's not a 
high quality product, I'm generally doing it for a reason, in which case 
I'm anticipating replacing it at some point in the future (for example, I 
have a need that there is a high-quality product for but I can't afford 
that product right now and my need is immediate - I'll take care of the 
immediate need with something "good enough" and save for the quality 
product for when the "good enough" product quits.)

I could go on and on, but I've actually got work to finish up this 
week. ;-)

Jim

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