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Comment by efitz | Hacker News Reader

There is a special circle of hell for business people who try to turn every single product into a continuous revenue stream. It’s just artificial rent seeking and people who involve themselves in it are morally deficient.

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I don’t disagree, but also feel that consumers also so price sensitive that they will buy whatever cheap thing appears in front of them and don’t think twice about the results.

The Internet is a great example of that where we demand everything be free and then we get upset when it’s not.

Samsung forces ads and malware down users throats regardless of whether they buy the cheapest phone or the latest flagship. Same goes for their highest end TVs. It’s really hard to blame the consumer for being price sensitive when they get ads on their $5,000 TV.

And yet there are alternatives and people still buy them.

I don’t know that people care, sadly.

That’s mistaking an effect for a cause, in my mind (your first paragraph). If companies are constantly changing the rules to squeeze more monetization out of existing relationships, of course consumers will only care about the lowest upfront cost: it’s the only benefit that’s real. If relationships with companies can’t be trusted, paying more to be treated better just makes you a mark.

Does it matter?

If consumers choose the cheapest thing it is a race to the bottom regardless.

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