The price is wrong
For some reason us Brits have a bit of a reputation for moaning. I can’t think why but it’s often said that we moan about the weather (”It’s too hot/wet/dry/cold”), the trains (”They’re too crowded/slow/dirty”), each other (”And so he said…”)… apparently we even moan about the fact that people say we moan a lot. I mean, you know, that’s just typical isn’t it? Bloody cheek if you ask me and it wouldn’t have happened in my day. In your day?
Anyway, what we royal subjects like to really moan about these days is Rip-Off Britain. We just love a bargain more than anything, and thanks to globalisation and the sweatshops it creates, we’re swamped with more bargains than ever before. Jeans for a fiver? No problem. DVD player for fifteen quid? You got it. 5p more for a litre of petrol?
<silence>
You what? You’re ‘avin’ a larf aintcha?
Just as we love a bargain, we absolutely detest being ripped off. And as our pound gets stronger against the dollar and the euro, the more, so the theory goes, retailers will sneakily mark their goods up, and the more we get ripped off.
A case in point is computer software. I read today about the new version of Roxio’s CD/DVD software, Toast. I checked it out on their website and it’s yours for $79.99. Unless you’re a Brit that is, in which case it’s £69.99 which translates to, at today’s exchange rate, $136.27. A SEVENTY percent increase.
And this happens across the board. Adobe charge $649 for Photoshop CS2 to North Americans and offer it to us at the bargain price of £569.88, or $1109.59. 70% again. Apple are a little more considerate and only mark up OS X by 34% (although songs cost 55% more on iTunes UK than on iTunes US). These blatant rip-offs are dwarfed, however, by Microsoft’s Office 2003 Professional which is a steep $379.99 on Amazon.com whereas Amazon.co.uk is charging a positively vertical £437.99 ($852.79). A colossal mark up of 124%.
And there’s not a lot we can do, other than, I suppose, moan.
Some people just object and persevere with GIMP and OpenOffice. Some will try out an ‘evaluation copy’ they found via Bitorrent. Most Brits, though, will begrudgingly accept it, buy it on credit, put the kettle on and get back to the Daily Mail. Now, about those trains…
Posted by Olly on February 9, 2007 at 3:49 pm in software
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