Hacker News Reader

Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

What if Joe Blow watches Avatar and then comes to the realization that he's wasted 2 hours of his life?

How shall that be recovered?

Should it be recovered? If you buy a product that you wish you didn't buy, wouldn't you normally return it? I see no reason for businesses to get money by basically tricking their customers into buying something they later find out it's not what they expected.

No return on opened DVDs/Games usually.

Depends on why your returning it right? I've successfully argued that games that do not run on my machine, because frankly someone was dreaming when they wrote out those minimum requirements are not "as described".

Now we're just getting silly.

A huge portion of our economy is based on buying services and not physical goods. If every service was exactly as described and advertised we wouldn't need Consumer Reports, Yelp, or Epinions. We'd live in utopia. And yet, here we are.

I know that the real world is not ideal or how it should be, but I'm saying the potential for disruption/more efficient alternatives is there. Since they seem to think that they are entitled to trick (a rather harsh word, but not that far from the truth) their customers, that means there is an opening for an alternative - whether that's more "honest" competition, or straight out piracy to "test" the product beforehand.

> If you buy a product that you wish you didn't buy, wouldn't you normally return it?

Consumer law in England doesn't let you do this. Many, but not all, shops do allow returns as a good-will measure. (Unless you buy online, where the Distance Selling Regulations give the customer remarkable rights.)

Doesn't "Buyer Beware" mean anything anymore?

We can't just return it, but The Sale of Goods Act 1979 makes it an implied term of the contract that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. That does give you some measure of leeway. Otherwise Buyer Beware indeed!

By not wasting any more of his money on shitty movies? "Fool me once, shame on you" and all that?

It felt more like 3 hours.

It felt more like a lifetime to me!

The same way a defective 3d printed vehicle would be returned, proof of destroying what you made for a full refund. In the case of avatar... You can't unsee the movie, maybe an equivalent dose of pain to counteract the plesure? Maybe if you can prove you only derived a few units of pleasure from it, you are compensated the delta between how much was claimed and how much was delivered.

A startup where you sell movies for prices according to how much the watcher enjoyed it might be a billion dollar idea.

> maybe an equivalent dose of pain to counteract the plesure?

So, they would have to watch it again?

I think Hollywood calls this a "sequel".

E.g. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093857/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com