Things that you just can't fathom why they cost so much.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by redforever

Then it is not. I thought you were talking about making a compilation by downloading the music off the net.

Fair enough. FWIW I have over 3,000 songs on my computer. No need to download off the net

[Draug]

One that hasnt been mentioned yet...

BANK FEES!

I hate them. First, they charged us for using ATM's instead of their time intensive and costly human Tellers. Now, I see that some banks are charging a "Teller Fee" for any face to face transaction with a human Teller. Brutal.

Thank God for PC Financial.

[Hack&Lube]

Mp3 Player - $150
Mp3 Player fabric case with belt clip - $60

WTF?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by redforever

Sure you can, but do you have the recording studio and all the other paraphanalia that makes the music sound good in the first place. If it is a junk CD, it still sounds like junk when you compile them yourself.

Honestly, with today's computers, software, and other cheap digital hardware, one can easily have a economical yet comparable recording studio in one's own home that can churn out professional quality stuff. I have no idea what this "junk CD" thing means. Audio fidelity will not change unless you mean the music was poorly recorded and mastered in the first place and not the quality of the actual disc.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Audio fidelity will not change unless you mean the music was poorly recorded and mastered in the first place and not the quality of the actual disc.

That's exactly what was being talked about.

I have friends who have small band; play about 10 gigs per year. One band got all of us to pre-buy their CD for $15, went to a studio and recorded the CD. Another band just went and recorded their own CD- cost to friends was $5 each. There is a world of difference.

The bottom line is no CD would sound anywhere near as good as it does without the technology used prior to us getting our grubby little hands on it. Having said that, I still think they are overpriced; compared to how much the artists see of the profits.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

Japanese toll roads. It costs $30 to go from Tokyo to my wife's home town (near Kofu) - and it's about the same distance as Calgary-Canmore.
The other thing I concur on is razors.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by fotze

Costco or Superstore are much better options, too bad they didn't have store on every block like Safeway.

Please tell me you did not just say that Superstore's beef is better than Safeway's. I've gotten sick from Superstore's ground beef on two seperate occasions, and any time I've told anybody in the meat business about it, they usually tell me they are not surprised.

Yes, Safeway is overpriced, but can you really put a price tag on not vomitting from both ends?

[Drunk Skunk]

After shopping online last night, I'll say that hats are definitely overpriced. $25 US for a fitted had. After tax and shipping, it was almost $40. Thankfully, I found a couple cool fitted hats in my size(I've an enormous melon) on clearance. $26 total for two hats and second day shipping

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Prescription Eyedrops for allergies. The Livostin drops I have are about 1/2 the size of a AA battery and they're like $50. It's not like they curing cancer with these things - R&D should have been recovered long ago.

[Reaper]

I love how this thread has turned from people not being able to understand how certain things cost what they do to people bitching about the price of certain items being higher than they would like them to be. I also enjoy how people complain about the profit that some companies/retailers are making while consumers freely purchase goods from said parties. If a party asks an amount for a product and a consumer is willing to pay the price then no foul has been committed. The next thing you know there will be total starangers telling me that they should be able to limit the amount of income I can earn.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Dion

We are being gouged in regards to what we pay for music CD's. I can burn my own compilation discs for less than a buck, yet we get raped by the recording industry when we buy one of their music CD's.

Aren't record companies allowed to make a profit. We are getting gouged by a lot of things. Fast food, clothing manufacturers, apparently razor blade makers. Why are record companies the ones that are always accused of taking advantage of the consumer?

12 bucks for a CD? Seems like good value to me.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by fotze

No, its called Safeway. The most overpriced dung store going. Chicken is obscenely expensive, so is cheese. Costco or Superstore are much better options, too bad they didn't have store on every block like Safeway. Their beef is also inferior tasting compared to others. I;m still waiting on that side of cow that tron is going to get me.

I am sorry, but it is about supply and demand. Now if you dont like Safeway, so be it, I am not going to promote one grocery store over the other.

BUT, if you go to any grocery store, you will find that there is a big difference between the price of chicken breasts compared to the price of chicken legs. You wont find one store where they are priced the same. It has nothing to do with just one grocery chain. They ALL charge more for chicken breasts compared to chicken legs.

And that wont change if you add a Costco or Superstore to every block. You are comparing two different products.

Now perhaps chicken breasts are cheaper per kg at Superstore compared to Safeway, and perhaps chicken legs are cheaper per kg at Superstore compared to Safeway but there will still be a price difference between the two products at each grocery chain. And maybe if you add more Costco and Superstores in other locations, the prices that Safeway charges for either chicken breasts or chicken legs will come down with the added competition, BUT, there will still be a higher cost associated with chicken breasts. And that will stay until consumers as a whole change their eating preferences.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by ken0042

That's exactly what was being talked about.

I have friends who have small band; play about 10 gigs per year. One band got all of us to pre-buy their CD for $15, went to a studio and recorded the CD. Another band just went and recorded their own CD- cost to friends was $5 each. There is a world of difference.

The bottom line is no CD would sound anywhere near as good as it does without the technology used prior to us getting our grubby little hands on it. Having said that, I still think they are overpriced; compared to how much the artists see of the profits.

I'm with you on that. With the technology allowing more and more people access to recording facilities, I'm more than happy to see the monolithic multinational record labels get squeezed out. I'm impressed by many of the smaller, Canadian labels (Nettwerk, True North, etc) who seem to realize that it is the artists and the fans who are the important ones.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by ken0042

That's exactly what was being talked about.

I have friends who have small band; play about 10 gigs per year. One band got all of us to pre-buy their CD for $15, went to a studio and recorded the CD. Another band just went and recorded their own CD- cost to friends was $5 each. There is a world of difference.

The bottom line is no CD would sound anywhere near as good as it does without the technology used prior to us getting our grubby little hands on it. Having said that, I still think they are overpriced; compared to how much the artists see of the profits.

1. I did not explain myself well before. You have done it much better. This is what I was getting at. If you want a certain sound on your CD, a high quality sound, you will have to do one of two things. You will have to buy all of your own recording equipment and build your own studio to get that sound, or you have to be willing to fork out the money for someone else to do it for you. The CD in itself is cheap, it is the process of putting the music on the CD that costs money.

2. Yes, the artists probably do not see much of the profits that the recording studios make. On the other hand, if they never had someone to promote them, to record them etc, how much profit do you realistically think they would see then? Making music for a living is not much different than farming. The money you receive for your product is very small compared to the final selling price.

[Berger_4_]

Originally Posted by Drunk Skunk

After shopping online last night, I'll say that hats are definitely overpriced. $25 US for a fitted had. After tax and shipping, it was almost $40. Thankfully, I found a couple cool fitted hats in my size(I've an enormous melon) on clearance. $26 total for two hats and second day shipping

this is very true...i don't really want to know how much money i have put into hats over the years...i wear one everywhere so i go through a lot of them...i've probably spent somewheres around 150 bucks on hats this year alone...

[Berger_4_]

Originally Posted by redforever

1. I did not explain myself well before. You have done it much better. This is what I was getting at. If you want a certain sound on your CD, a high quality sound, you will have to do one of two things. You will have to buy all of your own recording equipment and build your own studio to get that sound, or you have to be willing to fork out the money for someone else to do it for you. The CD in itself is cheap, it is the process of putting the music on the CD that costs money.

2. Yes, the artists probably do not see much of the profits that the recording studios make. On the other hand, if they never had someone to promote them, to record them etc, how much profit do you realistically think they would see then? Making music for a living is not much different than farming. The money you receive for your product is very small compared to the final selling price.

True dat yo....actually, it's very very similar to the music industry. Lots and lots of overhead (think at least a quarter of a million dollar loan every year for seed, fertilizer, spray, etc...not to mention paying for equipment that costs nearly that much if not more new) before you even get the end product into the ground. so every year, you are down 250,000 bucks before you even begin work. kinda scary actually. and then there is the low cost of grain...whats wheat at now? 4 or so dollars a bushel? now how many bushels of wheat does it take to make a loaf of bread? what does that loaf of bread sell for? but it is kind of a cool feeling to know that you are literally feeding the world even if you are making not a helluva lot of money

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Berger_4_

True dat yo....actually, it's very very similar to the music industry. Lots and lots of overhead (think at least a quarter of a million dollar loan every year for seed, fertilizer, spray, etc...not to mention paying for equipment that costs nearly that much if not more new) before you even get the end product into the ground. so every year, you are down 250,000 bucks before you even begin work. kinda scary actually. and then there is the low cost of grain...whats wheat at now? 4 or so dollars a bushel? now how many bushels of wheat does it take to make a loaf of bread? what does that loaf of bread sell for? but it is kind of a cool feeling to know that you are literally feeding the world even if you are making not a helluva lot of money

1. This should put it into perspective for the average Joe consumer. The BEST price my father ever got for wheat was $4 a bushel. That was back in the 1960's. Yup, 50 years ago!!! And what is the price per bushel of wheat now? Sigh, about the same. Does that help all of you to see why farmers are in such dire straits? And that is not all. It might be $4 per bushel right now, but for like 20 years or more, it has been half that. How has the price of machinery for farmers fared in that time span? It has skyrocketed. We are talking a couple of hundred grand for a tractor, same for a combine, etc. What has the price of fuel done in that same time span? Same as the price of machinery, it has skyrocketed!!!
Sure, farmers have diversified and grow many more products now than just wheat, but along with the diversification comes the cost of new machinery to harvest the new product. And then what has happened to those farmers of mixed operations? In other words, they grow grain crops as well as cattle? Well I think you know the answer to that since the BSE crisis in cattle. Farmers are being hit hard from every corner. We should salute most of them for their ongoing efforts.

2. Now to put the whole thing into further perspective. As I mentioned, the best price my father ever got for the wheat he sold was $4 per bushel and that was 50 years ago. Well, back then, bread was maybe 40 cents per loaf. Ask yourself, what is the price of bread today? Oh maybe $2 and up? Is the farmer getting anymore for his product? Nope, so when you buy that loaf of bread, where is your money going? It is going to everyone who touches that wheat once it leaves the farmer's hands. And you can be sure that each and every one of them over the last 50 years has seen the price for their service rise. They all have except for the farmer. Does something smell wrong in the state of Denmark?

edit: I forgot to mention that 1 bushel of wheat is around 56 pounds, so say around 25 kg. A baker can make at least 40 loaves of bread from that. So then, the farmer is paid a maximum of $4 for his bushel of wheat right now, and that will equate to at least 40 loaves of bread at around $2 and up. So around $80 minimum is generated from that loaf of wheat. Farmers portion is 5%.

50 years ago, the farmer got the same price, $4 per bushel of wheat. Bread then was around 40 cents per loaf and extrapolating, that comes to around $16. The farmer now got around 25% of the chain of income. See why the farmer could survive back then? and has one hell of a time keeping the family farm now?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Aren't record companies allowed to make a profit. We are getting gouged by a lot of things. Fast food, clothing manufacturers, apparently razor blade makers. Why are record companies the ones that are always accused of taking advantage of the consumer?

12 bucks for a CD? Seems like good value to me.

Sure they're allowed a profit. In this case it's gouging.

The reason the gouging continues is that consumers are willing to pay those prices. In a sense it's the consumer who indirectly sets the market price.

12 bucks for a CD? I think i'll wait for the greatist hits disc when it comes out, or wait until the artist's discs hits the discount rack. I love music, but not at the regular prices.

[Berger_4_]

well said, well said...do you actually farm? just curious...oh and way to go, now we're just spreading the rumour that all farmers do is bitch and moan until they get a hand-out from the gov't (although the way things are going, i think we almost have a right to)

[Dion]

Originally Posted by fotze

No, its called Safeway. The most overpriced dung store going. Chicken is obscenely expensive, so is cheese. Costco or Superstore are much better options, too bad they didn't have store on every block like Safeway. Their beef is also inferior tasting compared to others. I;m still waiting on that side of cow that tron is going to get me.

Agreed! Worked for Safeway for many years and couldn't believe how gulible consumers are. If they did price comparisons they'd be shopping Superstore or as you say Costco.

Superstore also has the lowest dispensing fee's when it comes to presciption medications.