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Comment by crankylinuxuser | Hacker News Reader

Capitalism knows no bounds. I dealt with that after my dad died, and went to the funeral home.

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?'

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You know that something is wrong with a lot of Americans if they're dropping $1100 on flowers or $6000 on a casket... I mean c'mon, $6000 on a piece of furniture (?) that you'll see for maybe an hour and then bury it into the ground to rot?

Some people do splurge for flowers and a casket, but the last 4 or 5 funerals i have been to stated "in lieu of flowers" donate to such and such. Some people dont do that and still buy flowers.

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 think you can have armored plating inside the casket, so it doesn’t ruin the exterior.

The Ancient Egyptians have some pretty big arguments to make here.

I went to a funeral home recently to discuss what to do when I die. This is in France (west of Paris) where these discussions are not that common.

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.

Yeah, they are almost literally vultures. You should probably buy those for yourself while you're alive.

FWIW amazon sells cremation urns for a decent price ($60-100).

Try "Oh, he woundn't want that".

My father died of cancer when I was 17. In our culture, I was now "man of the house" and was involved in the funeral decisions. That means I had to go along with my uncles to make some decisions. And the sales guys were still peddling and upselling products to a 17 year old kid in their time of grief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Way_of_Death

My local newspaper went from having an open, freely accessible archive of obituaries to a time-limited paywall that you can have removed for various periods of time at correspondingly increasing prices. Just the lowest of the low.

And how do you expect your local paper to survive when the classifieds (the largest source of income for many local papers IIRC) have moved online and physical subscription numbers and ad buys are declining?

This line of reasoning could also justify shoplifting to stock their break room. What I would "expect" (or really "hope") is that they would not do immoral/distasteful things.

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.

Through wiser business decisions than alienating their customers by putting their loved ones’ obituaries behind a paywall.

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