Why?
In the days of paper, if you didn’t pay for your subscription, you didn’t get the newspaper at all.
In the days of paper, if you didn’t pay for your subscription, you didn’t get the newspaper at all.
Every fucking thing is an upsell. Every goddamned thing. And the funeral home salespeople use the fact it's a death to capitalize on it any way they can.
sales: 'Do you want flowers for the casket? $1100'
mom: 'No'
sales: 'Don't you think he's worth flowers?'
mom: 'alright...'
sales: 'heres our selection of caskets, many families choose these ($6000)'
mom: 'but he doesnt care, he's dead'
sales: 'dont you love your husband?'As it is, obits are paid for by the word when they're printed. But apparently a few hundred dollars isn't enough to serve a simple webpage for a few decades.
It would be one thing if it were just an upfront one-time fee along with the publishing. But hitting you up after it's been "published", and instant-but-short-gratification options like $3 to unlock for 24 hours (etc) is just predatory.
Contrast the experience of buying a paper with the obit, keeping it, and running across it in ten years with the experience of hitting a truncated webpage that uses your lament to hit you up for money.
As for the casket, I believe the cheapest pine box is good enough for me (or cremation). Of course the metal vault around the casket is defiantly needed...you know in case of a zombie outbreak ;)
I told them I want the cheapest solution and the best logistics (so that someone did all the paperwork when I die). And that nobody discusses what we agreed upon once I am not here anymore to negotiate :)
It was great. They showed me the catalog going straight for the cheapest options and suggested I come back a year later as it will be cheaper for me.
I think the funeral business is changing in France because more prone are like me, they plan their funerals in advance so they are much more relaxed discussing than the ones who come right after someone's death, to fall with it.
Actually it is not. It's quite the opposite. The obituary is written and published for the living, to inform everyone of your death and to let family and loved ones express themselves. You are dead, so you don't care or read the obituary. the ones surviving you will handle that.