A friend of mine is a camera operator for a small production firm. They have some really old equipment, including tripods that aren't safe to use for their cameras, but they still cheap out on them anyway.

He gets paid about $16/hour to stand by the camera for up to 20 hours a week to make sure it doesn't fall over, which costs around $10k/year. A new tripod would cost $1500 and could last for a decade, so $it's 100k vs $1500.

Justify that, if you can. I can't, and I'm not being sarcastic or bitchy, I really want someone to explain it.