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Diamonds are just a scam and stupid bragging rights! IF a person said come look at my natural house it cost me 5 million! and they showed you a cave 60SqM (600SqFt) in size and said its expensive because its NATURAL! You would think they are insane! diamonds should be the same!
No houses are one of the true prices, its value is whatever people are willing to pay! Its not some conspiracy if people are willing to pay the high price then people will charge the prices its stupid not too! Land that was worth 1 per hectare is now worth 1-5 per meter! thats just market forces!
The off-road wheels for my wheelchair. They're almost identical to mountain bike wheels but cost £400 for the pair. Disability-related items in general are ridiculously over-priced because they know the people buying them don't have much of a choice.
As a sewer/knitter/crocheter- clothes are SO undervalued and under priced. I cant buy the materials to make an item for the cost of a fast fashion item. And I couldn’t make a living wage if I sold my hand made items for even designer prices.
That is so true! people are always asking why I don't sell my creations, but it's just not viable, no-one would pay the price it cost to make the item.
I was a casket delivery driver for over 6 years and it’s actually quite common for people to “buy” their own funerals. You can pick your funeral while still alive and lock in the prices of when you decide to start making payments. Literally every thing increases in price at the beginning of the fiscal year. It also relieves your family of a lot of stress as all of the decisions are already made and hopefully paid for in full.
@@kmacdizzle, we ran into this with my grandmother recently even with a legit funeral home. They were still using paper records and there was someone by the same name in the same town and they seemingly had thrown out my grandmother's version thinking there was a duplicate... 🫠 Thankfully she kept incredible records (former military) so they honored her prepayment but we had to guess at music and everything else even though she had literally sat down with them to do all that the year before. Thankfully the other person by the same name was similar (religion, age, etc.) so we were able to use her choices as a base...lol. But my grandmother had paid for a much nicer funeral than her so we were surprised initially until my aunt realized the college was totally wrong.
No, books aren't so expensive here. You also just don't tend to need them so much. A lot of Professors use digital copies they give access to or upload screenshots/scans to the Uni portal etc. I remember having to buy one book that was like £30 or something and being annoyed, then I thought about how it is in the US and felt grateful...lol
I had to buy three books (one was available for free online, but I work better with physical copies). I only spent £25 for only one of the books. I got one for free straight from one of the departments, and my other department gave me a £75 book voucher so I essentially got the third for free.
Yeah, sort of the same here (Netherlands). Most of the books I needed were around 50 euro. The only more expensive books that I needed to buy were meant to be used in multiple courses. My most expensive book, about 250 euros, I used for 3/4 year.
One of the reasons text books are expensive is due to limited purchasers and constant updates. To print an updated book costs the same as a new book and worse there is often different text books for each country and sometimes for each Uni. I am not defending them I am just being factual. This problem should go away when electronic books become the norm but then there will be a problem of piracy so they may become even more expensive we have to wait and see.
@@mikeorgan1993 Ah yes, because here in Europe we buy them in bulk 🙄 There's no way a book can cost €30 here in Belgium, published in Dutch which has a tiny percentage of people actually speaking that, in comparison to millions of people who speak English. You're not going to tell me there's more people going to uni here in Belgium and The Netherlands than in the USA
Tom Scott pointed out in his video on Dasani water that "mineral water" is a protected term in the UK, and is not tap water. This is what can be commonly assumed to be "bottled water" here, which was why there was a fuss over Dasani using just bottled water. And then the water was contaminated.
It was just fabulous how the Dasani story mirrored that of Peckham Spring so well, especially with Sidcup being just down the road from Peckham. It looks like they almost had a go with AHA until somebody there realised they'd be buried under Alan Partridge memes.
Most of the overpriced stuff I buy are mobility aids, I don't have a choice because I need them. £25 for a long handled hairbrush, which I haveto keep glueing back together. £15 for a cup carrier so I can take my tea into living room without spilling it. £40 for a tray which can be carried one handed, it's a plastic tray with handle! Then there's the expensive items like wheelchairs/mobility scooters...
Yeah the cost of disability is astronomical. So far I have managed with second had or cheap things, like my first walking stick cost £10 and lasted almost 5 years, and the replacement was only £15. The scooter I have only cost £100 from a friend of friend whose grandmother had recently died. But after not being used through lockdown it doesn't work anymore and I keep putting off finding a replacement. And don't get me started on secondhand automatic cars, while they are not quite as rare as they used to be, they're still difficult to find and more expensive.
@@SevCaswell You might be able to get away with a replacement battery or getting someone (who knows what they're doing) to jump-start the old battery. I seem to remember my grandma having a similar issue with hers. Also, you might qualify for the Motability Scheme which is a UK charity that helps disabled people get suitable cars - I think you lease the car from them for 3 years and then you'll be offered a new one.
@@hannahk1306 The scooter has a new battery, but it had a flat tyre and the wheel got taken off by my step-dad to get it fixed and now it just makes a very high pitched noise when I turn it on. As for the Motability scheme, I have been denied PIP twice now, so I don't think I qualify, and certainly can't afford to hire a car. I have to save up just to pay for the MOT and general servicing for the car I currently have.
@@SevCaswell Ah that's a shame. I can't remember exactly how it works, but I think they take care of all the maintenance (don't need MOTs as under 3 years old). However, I think the payments come out of PIP/DLA so that might rule you out. Maybe one day we'll have a disability benefits system that actually benefits disabled people...
@@hannahk1306 You need enhanced rate mobility component of PIP to qualify for the motability scheme. Repairs, servicing, breakdown cover and insurance is included.
1. Funerals, they can put you in a cardboard box, and you can use anything as an urn if it has a lid. 2. Weddings: fully eff that. My fiance and I are doing a courthouse wedding and a BBQ "reception".
About that printer ink: I've worked in the printing industry, and I can say that black + colors (usually all the colors, not just blue) really does produce a "better" (i.e. darker) black. But most b/w printing jobs don't require the best possible black, and it's ridiculous that we are forced to always use colored ink.
I am working in the printing industry and yes black + cyan create a nicer deep black. By using only black it will look Grey to the eye. (also it annoys me when people name the wrong colors. But that is because of my job haha. for regular printing it called CMYK = cyan magenta yellow key (contrast/black))
The really nasty practice is that of putting "kill" chips in toner (or ink) cartridges. Usually these are just a simple ID chip. The printer will then sense the serial number on the cartridge, then associate that cartridge with a countdown. Once it's been in the printer for x number of prints, it will register as "empty" even though, it likely still has plenty of life left in it. This is their way of preventing the average user refilling the cartridge. I discovered that my OKI printer only kept up to 5 serial numbers in it's internal memory, so if you hang on to your used toner cartridges, once you've used another five cartridges, you can go back to the first one and it will register as a new cartridge. Other models will actually write the countdown to the kill chip so that doesn't work. This kind of restrictive practice seems to be so ubiquitous now that it feels criminal just to give away these secrets. Yet It's the disingenuous methods of the manufacturer that should be illegal, not the users attempting to optimise their use of the printer.
About the diamond thing, Before my wife and I were married, we were pricing up different types of wedding bands, I like white gold and she likes rose gold, we decided to go with a set of matching wedding bands that are half white and half rose with a little grove to separate the two metals. The female ring in the set came with 4 diamonds in the grove, the man showing us these rings asked if we would like, I think he said pure cut diamonds or something like that, my wife asked what the difference was, he said for an extra £200 the diamonds would look better under a magnifying glass. After getting confirmation that the difference would not be visible to the naked eye my wife replied to the man. “What the fucks the point then?” I knew then I was marrying a real keeper.
I have similar story with my husband - our rings are white gold and rose gold, only mine has few stones but not diamonds. I hope diamond Industry/slavery will come to end some day
Ok so it was 30 years ago but my engagement ring cost £15 and my wedding ring was £20. Both 9ct gold (I’m allergic to anything else) and I still love them. As a price comparison, one tier of a wedding cake back then cost £10.
@@crystalh450 Despite what social media says about us no we really don't care for the expensive things our parents did. Things like big weddings and diamond rings aren't really our interest. Not like we could afford it. A lot of us have little/no chance of affording a house. Why bother with something like that? My generation (gen Z) is very... disillusioned and pessimistic about what's tradition. Majority of people I know around my age want lab grown gems on their wedding ring, small or basically no wedding reception, whatever is cheaper.
Gotta disagree with the clothes being overpriced, in the sense that while the brand is clearly ripping you off since all the profits are going to the company, in general we're too used to buying unsustainable low quality clothing. I think we should pay more for less clothing that will last longer and people are being payed fairly (and trying to minimise environmental impact )
I have never understood why branded clothes exist. In my mind, a t-shirt is a t-shirt. I don't want any fancy logos to show off to people "Look at me, look at how I can afford branded clothes"
Very often one factory will make a bunch of clothing and later on a brand will buy that clothing and stick their label on it- so the thing you're buying wasn't necessarily made for that company to sell it was just made and a company decided if it matched their vibe. When it comes to fast fashion, you're virtually paying nothing for the labor, paying very little for materials, and mostly paying for the name.
My friend works at a very senior level in a glasses company, I can’t name but you can guess… they make virtually all the designer glasses you know… he’s told me that even the European made, best designed glasses etc cost a maximum of £10 to make… Now, I buy my glasses direct from china, found a good uk company out there
In the Netherlands, some of the textbooks I had to get are the exactly the same American textbooks, just only for 50 euro with a big "International Edition" on the front cover and the information that this edition is illegal to sell to the US on the back.
i study in the uk (undergraduate) and all my books are free, the physical versions are available on the library and there's also a digital version of the library + the professors usually post pdf versions of what we need to read (most of the uni books i have are written by the professors that teach me anyway so they have access to them)
in my uni we had to pay for them, it was horrendous, especially when some of them had such bad design/print quality :< It literally hurt to pay the £400
Textbooks are thought of as expensive in Australia, the majority seem to range anywhere between $60-$250AUD (at least in my experience). However my University had free e-book access to pretty much every textbook that was compulsory to pass a class. Where they weren’t available, professors would share access codes or downloaded chapters with the class. They would also upload the class outline with the relevant pages of the weekly readings/questions for 2-3 different editions of the textbook so that people could buy the older, cheaper, second-hand books :)
Were they paying a fee to the publisher for the 'free' e-book access? Chapters and articles excepts are common and allowable but they have to be paying for either library use (library pays a fee and licensing can cost more if more people use it) but using the whole book can cause a lot of copyright problems unless it was your university's publishing. I ask because while I know some try their best to adhere to standards a lot of illegal sharing of books through profs/lecturers is rampant around the world. I did like those you outlined older editions could be used or mentioned what sections may be different.
My grandparents have already bought their funeral. Chosen their coffins and everything. Get what they want that way and saves the family stress during the grieving process. Pretty sure it's actually quite common to do once of a certain age.
Though my mac was very expensive, I have had it for 11 years (bought it for college) and my only issues with it is the battery lasts all of 1.5 hours and my memory is almost full. Also for the disney thing, I have a couple friends who work for Disney World in Orlando, and they dont make enough to live alone, yes Orlando is expensive, but if you're working for a world wide multi billion dollar company, you should be able to make enough to live without relying on a second income.
My sister worked for WDW for 5 years, TRUTH! There is some housing right by their bus system for Magic Kingdom, since parking is kept far from the park, and even that “affordable” housing from The Mouse is too expensive to not have a few roommates. And their College Program is a scam for the students, they just want the cheap labor, the students in the program do not benefit from it unless they want to work for the company….advice: don’t work for the parks if you have another choice. My sister cannot use any Disney references because they are not allowed to discuss employment aside from confirming the time someone has worked with the company, Disney wants you to stay in their bubble.
A friend of my cousin works for Disney Pixar as an animator. He is able to work remotely from Canada so his housing is less expensive than if he lived at Orlando. He is making pretty good money too. I guess the movie department is better paid than the park department. Honestly it wouldnt surprise me seeing the budget of the recent starwars series.
Regarding your computer, do you mean your computer’s memory is full or its storage is full. Storage is where you keep things that you want to be able to save and then access later like photos, documents, downloaded files. Memory is a work area that your computer uses while it is turned on to function but which normally requires power to maintain its contents.
Wedding rings in general!! I told my now-husband that I do NOT want a ring the price of our rent, I would be terrified to wear it. He got me one that cost 500 euros and even if that is also a lot, at least I can wear it without getting a separate insurance for it😂😂😂
That is still a crazy expensive ring. I get that it's symbolic, but you could just as well get a symbolic hat, and someone would probably thing you're crazy for getting a 500 € hat.
@@Liggliluff Oh I know its still expensive 😅 But compared to the average price of wedding rings which is 5900 USD for example in the US, its nothing😅 You gotta compare it to the price of items In the same class so to say, because of course there's still always a cheaper option somehow. Cheapest would be not to get a ring at all of course, but thats not the point😅
@@Bunnybananabunny I get you, but at the same time I disagree. I will compare it to items of the same class; not to other expensive wedding rings, but to items in general that can work as a symbol. If my partner got me a wedding ring, I would understand that they want to show their appreciation, but at the same time I would see it as a bad financial decision. I'd rather have for example a plush doll, of course not just any random cheap one, but one that is special. But still not one that is 500 €. It's just that this whole rings deal feels so exploitative; our partners needs to spend a lot of money on a ring to show that they appreciate us. Nah. But if it does mean a lot to you, that's good, then it was the right decision. I'm happy for you. I'm a bit too negative sometimes.
@@Liggliluff I wouldn't call you too negative, you just value different things😊 For example I don't see the ring as a token of appreciation, but a symbol of our marriage to carry with me. It's the tradition I value, which makes it impossible in my case to swap for any other item. One could argue a tattoo, necklace or other can be worn, but it's not the same thing because of the tradition-aspect. But just because you don't find that tradition important doesn't mean you're too negative or anything! Just that you value different things in life😊
@@Liggliluff Also, I would say in your case especially if someone spent 500 euros on a ring they clearly wouldn't know you at all! So that's a good way to vet if your potential partner really knows and understands you!😁
Going back to the larger bra size, they really are expensive. Right now when I look for bras the retail price for a JJ cup is £30-40 each. I have to buy whatever is in the sale regardless of style to get them for £17-19 each. I tried looking for a swimsuit recently with a bra fitted in it and it was £45 minimum
I used to be able to get a bra in Primark for £2 but now they grew and they don't make my size rip (the struggles of small band big cup that a lot of companies forget about)
@@BookNomming Very true. And don't last for very long at all. The support gives up and the bra just gets more uncomfortable. I have to laugh when I hear that some people are wearing a bra for years and mine only last a few months before they aren't comfortable or supportive anymore! It's laugh or cry 🤣😭
@@iNightra It is such a pain to get bras. I feel like I just accept that if the bra I find kind of fits then it's ok but really it's not comfortable but it's all I can get. The choice just isn't there for anything over a g/h cup.
What is stupid is the whole letters for cup sizes. All other clothing does numbers for everything, and the cup sizes are also based on numbers, but these numbers are converted over to letters. The biggest issue is that these letters are inconsistent. Metric letters has no double letters (except AA being the step before A), yet I've seen stores in metric countries selling bra cups with double letters ... what size are those even? What size are those single letters then? Are these not metric based bras? Just use numbers. Numbers are raw data. The whole idea that you measure twice, and then convert one to a letter is just stupid. Just use the two numbers. That every band size has an A cup doesn't mean anything either. There's no benefit of this.
yeah, the car inflation is noticable. I work in insurance and the amount of revaluations happening and coming back for double the original estimate because of what's happening is absurd.
In Finland you can bring your own snacks to the cinema (no alcohol though), but once they reopened after Covid they banned own snacks and you have to buy their overpriced crap. People revolted, not sure what the rule is now since I haven't been back at the cinema .
I carried a couple of bottles of water touring Paris and simply refilled them from the restroom taps in the Louvre and other places I visited. The water is fine.
8:52 Not to be "that guy" but the cost of your Macbook absolutely includes a GPU. You may not be buying it seperately, or able to upgrade it yourself, but you paid for one. And what really inflated the market, especially when nVidia's 30XX series came out, was a combination of Covid-related supply shortages and scalpers, and cryptobros building mining rigs.
Evan, I used to work for a company that supplied ink refill machines to Office Max. To refill a black ink cartridge used to cost about 20 cents for the ink. We were forced out of the market by lawsuits from the printer manufacturers.
Theme parks are pretty expensive in the UK but there are certain little things to save money. If you go to Thorpe Park in the last week of their open season they will give you a free annual pass for the next year. The annual pass also makes the food and other activities significantly cheaper (I think it's like 25% off)
In the U.K. it’s rail season tickets. Pushing £5k (USD6k AUD8.5k) a year for a ticket from the surrounding counties to London. Especially with all the problems the rail system has (not so much the strikes but constant signalling problems, broken down trains, poor communication along the line, staff shortages etc). But there is no more cost effective alternative to get into London.
Oh yes. After my Dad left us(died) my Mum wrote to our local university to offer her body for medical science (after she was dead of course,lol), but they refused but in a polite way and in the letter it said that even if they accept your offer that after they have cut up the body and investigated it and all that,they then return the remains to the family so you still have to pay for the disposal. I don't know if that was only the policy of OUR local university but I don't think its that easy to get out of paying some sort of death cost. As it worked out,in my Mums last days aged 91,I had a totally unexpected money windfall,enough to pay for a really lovely funeral for my Mum,so God provided.
Textbooks are nowhere near that exensive in the UK. They're probably about £30-60 to buy new, but you can easily get away with 2nd hand since professors don't seem to do that "one-time access code for online homework" bullshit here. You generally don't even need to buy them as all the notes you need are provided and homework questions are just given to you instead of having to get them from a textbook. Oh and the Uni library has most textbooks you will need anyway as well, as well as digital copies now since the pandemic.
I am going into my 6th year of uni in the UK (3 year BSc and 3 year part time masters). I have never had to buy a textbook. I could always get what I needed out of the library. And every student was given two physics textbooks at the start to help us through all the core material.
When I was in college I bought a couple of printers on clearance and just sold them off at a yard sale when they ran out of ink. It's crazy wasteful but it was the easiest way for me to afford printing.
Yeah, definitely depends on the recipient. If it's someone that likes gardening, then it's a great idea. But if it's someone that is always on the move and lives in say cramped shared accommodation, then they probably won't appreciate the gesture and would rather something they don't have to do anything with.
I worked in my college bookstore for a couple of years, and what really shocked me is that we made NO money from textbooks. All of our profits were from apparel or other school supplies. The prices for textbooks are determined by the publishers, and we couldn't afford to price them lower than what we got them for, so we were just trying to break even on them. Luckily I've had a couple good professors who decide to use a textbook that is a couple of editions older, in hopes that the price can be a tiny bit more reasonable, but for instance, my sister is a nursing student and she easily spends $1,000 a semester on just books, its crazy.
I usually buy stuff at the cinema because, the way this was explained to me, that's pretty much their major source of income. Apparently the movies themselves, the tickets, pretty much just break even - and the candy and popcorn is how they keep employees etc.
It's a pretty bad way to make money then cause no one buys it. If food was a little but cheaper, more people would buy and they could make more money in the long run.
@@KarolYuuki I dunno about "no one". Whenever I'm at the cinema, there are usually multiple lines of people wanting to get popcorn, sodas and candy. Seems to work alright. Of course, regional differences etc etc. I speak mostly for the various parts of Sweden I've went to the movies in. Might be different in other countries, or in parts of Sweden I haven't visited.
The bottled water in the UK is 'mineral water' as in its come straight from the source, American bottled water is literally just filtered tap water. There was a scandal in the UK about Dasani bottled water because everyone found out they were just filtering tap water and that's why you can't buy Dasani in the UK. So I wouldn't say its overpriced in the UK for 85p mineral water but if you are paying $2 for filtered tap water in the US then yeah....that's overpriced.
If you're paying 85p for mineral water, it's still overpriced. Google says a cubic meter (1,000 liters) of tap water in the UK is £1.92 and tap water is significantly more environmentally friendly than bottled water anyway.
@@yomintyfresh Yeah I totally agree, I don't buy bottled water, just wanted to comment on the 'bottled water is jut filtered tap water'....you're basically paying for the bottle
@@eattherich9215 I am not sure why you tagged me in this - the OP is the one who wrote, "I wouldn't say its overpriced in the UK for 85p mineral water". I have never paid 85p for a bottle of mineral water. ;)
I like statement jewellery, and I like sustainability. My engagement ring got A LOT of negative comments from people because it looks like a multiple thousand pound diamond. It's cubic zirconia and cost us £130. I love it because it feels like me, it's not breaking the bank and it's more ethical.
So this is a really nerdy one for overpriced things but I suspect people will agree: Warhammer miniatures. I remember back about 15 years ago a box of Necron Warriors (which is basically one squad of a basic troop type) cost about £12.00. Now it costs £30.00. Bare in mind, to play a typical game, you will need several of those boxes along with vehicles and leaders and elite troops. So a typical army these days will probably cost you around the £500.00 mark. And that's if you don't get special named characters from the lore. Szarekh, The Silent King costs £95.00. Yes the models are high quality but they are getting ridiculous, especially since you also need to buy glue and paints.
Haha, 3d printer go brrrr. Also, there are plenty of paints and brushes that are as good, or better, than GW at a similar or lower price point (Vallejo are a good place to start, especially the Model Air Metallics), and eBay plus a cheap ultrasonic cleaner can get you a close enough to brand new army for way cheaper.
For my uni (undergrad) we get told the one or two books we should buy because they'd be basically necessary(they're not very expensive), but we have a library, and a lot of books on the online version, where most books will be, unless they're extra.
Correction: diamonds on jewelry. Diamonds are actually very useful in science to cut all kind of strong things like glass because they are superstring.
The answer is clearly "Anything sold by Apple". This has been the case for more than thirty years - 1990 Commodore Amiga £400, Atari ST £350, Apple Mac £1200 - all with the same processor.
@@evan Obviously not because of different OS although you could certainly get a lot of what was available for the Mac on the Amiga (usually cheaper). Where Apple scored was superior marketing in the US and not having a bunch of shysters in charge who vanished a lot of the company's money. You could actually run Mac software on the Amiga with an emulator though, often faster.
Yes,its easy to smuggle in a sandwich and some chocolate but,ugh,I don't really want to be in a cinema where someone else is drinking alcohol! (Having said that,I rarely go to the cinema,and the one I do,has got those multiple rooms or whatever they're called and there is only ever about 2 people in there. If I go it would be afternoon).
12:30 dealing with the issue of finding a bridesmaid dress right now. The bride gave us the option to choose the dress style as long as the color was champagne gold and made out of satin. The hunt is the most stressful thing I’ve had to do. Nothing fits me, it’s like designers make dresses exclusively for those with a super skinny body type, and it’s weirdly hard to find a dress that wouldn’t have my tits out at my *brother’s* wedding. I hate knowing that when I do find a dress, it will likely be $400, and I will have to spend another $400 to get it tailored just to fit me. I never wear dresses so this one will be going straight into the trash after the wedding.
@@sd7785 I've suggested the same to the my family and the rest of the bridal party before but they all told me it was an unrealistic idea given price likely being in the thousands for a custom made dress and the rarity of that service within our area (most tailors just do size adjustments). I did look, the only custom dress services I can see are for wedding dresses the bride would wear...as in these seamstresses will *only* make wedding dresses since they can charge a fortune. Current plan is still to find a somewhat inexpensive dress that isn't too far off from my size so the tailor bill won't be so high. The dress specifications are so specific I wish I could just hire a seamstress though...
@@lucie4185 I haven't heard of that business before, I will look it up. Thanks for the suggestion. Edit: they don't have the color I need. It has to be champagne gold or the bride will make me buy another dress :(
In terms of the houses, here in Edinburgh, there are so many building sites for new houses it's unreal, the bigger problem is that there is no new infrastructure to support all these new houses. Schools, doctor surgeries, dentists etc. The schools already in the area are being crammed full and it's getting totally ridiculous.
yes bras, especially for larger cup sizes they are so insanely overprized, even worse if it's a size with "unusual" proportions like a smaller band and larger cup size
Is this for bras of all sizes or just the „less average“ ones? Here in Europe it’s mostly an issue to find more unusual sizes (like small band with big cups) and therefore you have to buy specialized brands that cost that much, but my size is available pretty much anywhere and I spend about 25$ per bra.
@@janebaker966 it all depends on your size, if you have even up to a C cup it can be doable to go braless but anything bigger and you run into issues with sag and clothes fit. I can't wear underwired bras, they just hurt too much, but as a DD/E cup I need something to keep them from flopping around. I switched to all in one bras a while ago (both shoulders froze and couldn't find front fastening bras I could afford) and have not looked back. I can get a 2 pack of The One bra from Avon for less than £50, or singly for under £30
I did physics at uni of Sheffield and they gave everyone (about 300 in my year), all 5 textbooks we needed for free. And these were the 5 textbooks we would need for the full 4 year course.
Clothes aren't overprized, they are underprized. And fashion is one of the few industries that managed to create virtual demand by literally creating a culture that recycles designs as "new" every few years while shortening the "what's good right now" time ever more.
It's overpriced for what it is. But everything of the price goes to the company instead of the workers. But €10 for a see-through t-shirt from H&M is expensive for me, as I won't be able to wear it anyway and it'll fall apart in just one wash
Well... Depends. Yes, the farmers, factory workers and sewers are underpaid. And many times its the worst quality material there is. But even if they were paid fairly, the prices would only insignificantly increase. And improved materials are often not nearly as expensive as it would look like. I.e. Of a 29$ Tshirt, only 0.18$ is actual wages. Sure, 3.4$ is the material. In contrast, 17$ is the retail margin, 3.61$ is the brand profit etc. If you would improve the material, you might look at 5$ material cost, and great wages would be 0.5$. Now add a 50% margin on top, then you end up at 2.5€ extra for a fair, high quality tshirt. Consequently: A branded 50$ Tshirt is definitely overpriced. While a 25$ noname Tshirt might actually be great quality and fair. (BTW: It's not the expensive brands that pledged to fair priced, but actually H&M and Co. And they are actually working on it, in contrast the the ones that basically wouldn't even need to adjust their prices.)
Clothes are an appropriate price for the quality you pay for in general. They should however be a higher quality, and last longer, which would make them worth a higher price.
Actually the prices are seriously marked up so they are overpriced for the manufacturing and shipping Cut out the owners and then it’s reasonable Cough corporate coup cough
Speaking of k cups. Yes bras are way too expensive, esp the larger sizes. I remember one time i needed a new bra and went to the usual shop i always go to. They happened to have a sale on the exact bratype i use, just in a bit of an odd colour. I thought hell yeah i'll get it for way cheaper if i buy this instead, and it eneded up being only A and B cups. So me, having DDs still had to go and buy the exact same bra, for the original price, cuz apparently only the smallest bras were worth putting on sale. Smh.
I think textbooks in the UK tend to be available in the university library either physically or online. Or the lecturers will have access to a copy they would give out. Never had to purchase a book for uni but that's also because my course was highly practical and project-based. For research, most academics that write articles/journals for research would also gladly give them out for free or for a lower price than journals would try and publish them for.
I remember my text books in college (1992-1996) being around $50-100 each and then at book buy back, even if they looked BRAND NEW, I'd get maybe $5 for a $50 book. Always pissed me off!
Not a science major, huh? I was in college 91-96, and $100 was on the low end. Vet school was much much worse. I think I bought maybe 5 books and did without dozens more that were on our list. Used the library when really needed.
Not sure about the college books nowadays, but in my time there was a book loan scheme by the school where you would loan books for a small fee and schools did not update the edition of the books for several years until too many copies wore out or became inaccurate in case of e.g. geography or history. Maths would go for a decade before being changed. I just checked and this still exists now! I loaned all of my books, it was pretty cheap. A few euros per book per year, I seem to recall it was about 80 eur per year for everything!
College textbooks... when I was in college I used to reserve the textbooks I needed in the college library to pick up on the first day of the semester. I would renew the maximising number of times and it would work out that I could have it for exactly 1 semester. Because nobody else seemed to cop on to this, I didn't have to buy a single college book while I attended 🙂
Clothes are NOT overpriced, the makers are severely underpaid (well except brand clothes I suppose because you're basically paying just for the brand but that's the case with brand everything)
Exactly, we just have gotten used to ridicously low prizes and in turn buy way more ill fitting low quality clothes with uncomfortable fabric than we need
They’re still overpriced though. Thanks to the fact that small Indonesian children can make a jacket worth £100+, it means that anything that isn’t made using slaves or children can be marketed for even more money. A British made winter coat that would’ve cost the equivalent of £40 in the 60s now costs over £100, maybe even £200, simply because it was made by people who are paid a wage above £5/day. The advent of cheap foreign labour didn’t make clothes much cheaper at all. It just made ethically and locally made clothes even more expensive.
Textbooks! Even worse when your professor wrote the book that is required for the class. You end up paying their salary via your tuition AND paying again via your required textbook purchase. A friend who worked in the campus bookstore told me that a lot of professors make minor/insignificant changes/updates every couple of years so that new editions have to be published and, therefore, a new book must be purchased and old versions only have a year or two of life at used book prices.
Many moons ago my cousins husband was doing some renovation work in a crematorium. Every day a funereal company would turn up and collect the empty coffins to resell to another customer. People think they burnt the whole lot, but the Crem staff were on an earner with various companies. Just taking the bodies out to cremate.
Funerals in the UK are so expensive. My daughter died when she was 3 months old I wasn’t working because of maternity leave but because she had died I lost my maternity pay and was too depressed to work 2 weeks after her passing. I was also very young at the time and although when you look up online that babies under 12 months old don’t have to pay for funerals that is actually wrong. Despite the “free service” I still had to pay and got into debt by over £4,000. So I was an out of work single mum of a 4yr old who had nothing was in debt and grieving. It’s now been 10 years and I have PTSD so bad I stockpile dry/canned foods incase I don’t have anything again just so my family can eat.
Here in Austria you can donate your Body to sience. You pay I think 800-900 Euros and you still getting buried in a honorary grave in the biggest cemetery. It is just like around 2 years later. A few years prior it didn't even cost anything, but due to the high numbers of dead body's they university started to charge people. It's still a fraction of what a actual funeral costs
One thing I could never wrap my head around people paying so much money for were sunglasses. It's such a small piece of plastic that would cost pennies to make. It's insane how people can justify paying hundreds of pounds for them.
The thing about buying food at cinema is that is how cinemas make all their money. They make almost nothing on the films. So if you have a small independent cinema (as I do in my town) it’s supporting the business to buy the concessions there and hopefully ensuing it survives so you don’t have to go to a big chain in another town.
Used to watch u all the time like 6-7 years ago, came back bc nostalgia and wow. I think I love ur content even more now!! Thank u for still being here🖤
Venue food/drink is horrifically priced - I think the worst I encountered was at a computer show up in Auckland. The venue was miles from any shopping centre and there was a "tuck truck" parked out in the parking lot from which you could buy food and drinks... they were charging $5 for a paper cup full of hot chips at a time when you could get an entire scoop of chips (enough for 2 or 3 people) for about $1.40 at any fish 'n' chip shop. It would _still_ have been a rip-off at a dollar a cup, so you'd expect to be charged $2... anywhere except in Auckland when it's the only food for miles.
Yes, K cup bras, in fact anything above a D cup, are horrendously overpriced. There’s not THAT much extra fabric! As someone who has a medical condition (lipoedema) that makes me both fat and disabled I can say both plus size clothing and disability aids are overpriced. In both cases they have you over a barrel because there just are no cheaper alternatives. Plus size underwear is a licence to print money for the manufacturers! Disability aids are ridiculously priced for how simple and easy to manufacture some of them are but essential in many cases so there is no choice but to pay the inflated price.
Branded medicine is only overpriced if you don't need it. I use medication on a daily basis and switched to the off brand only to have my blood work be completely fucked up. My mother had the same thing happen to her when she switched. I only have the issue with my daily meditation, paracetamol 500 tablets for €0,50 works just fine.
In the U.S., the price of insulin is absolutely criminal. And type 1 diabetics like myself have no choice but to purchase it (and the needles, and the blood testing supplies, and other diabetic supplies) if we want to stay alive.
I don’t know what college libraries are like in the States, but both courses I’ve done in the UK have made sure that the core textbooks were on short-loan from the library. So long as you got in early and used that book, you’d not need to buy it. Second hand market on old editions is also quite good in the UK
In Germany our professors don’t assign homework out of a textbook but they create one worksheet per week (most of the questions are taken out of textbooks but this way the students don’t have to buy them to pass the class).
In my experience at a US university, some of my textbooks have been available at our library, but its usually only one copy, if your lucky two. So having 100 people in a class trying to check out that one book, its not very reliable unfortunatley.
Also for your k-cup thing, the modern machines have a feature that prevent you from using the fill your own cups, so you have to use their cups, its drm in the foil
I'e always hated diamonds. When we looked for an engagement ring, I was SERIOUSLY frustrated that there was so little other choices out there for other stones. It is getting better now.
What do you mean? You always have the option of any other stone. Are emerald and ruby rings not a thing anymore? (I haven't looked at jewelry for decades.) My bf bought me an onyx "engagement" ring in 1991. I already knew that I didn't want to play the diamond game.
@@joob40 Maybe in big cities in stores. Where I live, anything like an engagement ring style has diamonds. There were a scant few with emeralds, rubies, or sapphires. We wanted either london blue topaz or tanzanites. NO, maybe in London, but NOT out in the sticks. Oh, you can take a chance and order something online I guess, if you trust ordering a stone and or ring without ever having seen it in person first but...
@@charlotteinnocent8752 Maybe I don't know what engagement style is. I've seen some pretty extravagant rings on TV lately (the only exposure I have to this subject), but the traditional single-stone ring should be easy enough to find, no?
@@joob40 I wouldn't feel comfortable buying a ring and a stone from television or online. Only from a shop where I can check the quality myself. As I said, we travelled to a big city to get a ring because the three local cities/towns DIDN'T have other stones. Didn't have selection of them because "engagement rings are supposed to be diamonds", or so at least two shop keepers told us. We're in Ireland. My sister in law who lives in the UK had no trouble getting an emerald. You might simply live in a more populace place that is less conservative.
I'm currently at Uni in the UK at the moment and textbooks are still overpriced but not to the same extent as the US. I didn't have to buy any for my previous year but my first year the textbooks were around £100 each buying them new.
It was about £50 each when I did my degree 25 years ago, but thankfully secondhand were still valid - the material didn't change from year to year. I genuinely used a 1989 textbook about microprocessors in 1999 and it was just fine, despite how quickly technology changes. I hope this is still true today --- but I worry that like everything else in society, we are moving to a much more American-style commercial reality. :/
I'm in my second year of a degree in the UK, and I haven't had to buy a single textbook as they are all in the uni library free of charge. As they should be, since I'm paying £9k a year!! My degree is philosophy though, so a little different, there aren't compulsory modules. For whatever module I'm doing, including electives from departments such as education and psychology, I borrow the appropriate textbook or find it free online.
I did 4 years of uni and never had to buy a textbook. They were rarely referenced during lectures and if you wanted to read it there were plenty of copies in the library
Internet where I live is particularly expensive because I live in Hull and round this area we have a privately owned communications network, KCOM, and as a result they have effectively created a monopoly here by charging extortionate fees to other providers to use their network and forcing everyone else out. About 20 years ago I have dial up Internet with AOL but then KCOM forced them out and these days I'm paying £50 a month for broadband. I've been told the equivalent package elsewhere in the country could be obtained for half that. Little bit of trivia for you: due to the phone network in Hull being privately owned our traditional telephone boxes are cream coloured not red.
Re college textbooks, I’ve seen people in the US say it is cheaper to buy them from Amazon UK and pay the international shipping and import taxes than to buy them locally. I’ve never looked myself, but I do know that in the UK, there is no import tax on books.
I'm a death investigator at a medical examiner's office and yeah funerals are waaayyy overpriced. We get so many people coming into our office who have family that do want to arrange a funeral but can't afford it and we end up having to submit the decedent to the public fiduciary as an "abandoned body" so they can get some kind of disposition. But then the family doesn't get the ashes unless they pay the fees that the county paid for the cremation.
my sister in law actually had her wedding dress shortened and dyed after the wedding to wear as an evening dress. much more economical imo, and she gets to make more memories with an already meaningful piece of clothing
When I was in uni, our uni had a specific second hand book store and it was great! I got four books for £40 and then was able to pass it onto someone else the following year. The only exception was the maths book - the lecturer wanted the newest version of the book and the questions were all jumbled from the previous version but thankfully someone bought the PDF version of the book for like 10% of the price and just shared it with everyone else so we didn't have to buy it
What if as an alternative to graves we made museums where your family could buy a spot to put their favorite picture or painting of you and like a blurb of who you were and maybe even some props like things you made. It could be really interesting to walk around a local "museum of the dead" and learn about the previous generations.
Regarding the food and drink at sports events, I've not been to many as the tickets alone are bloody overpriced for the amount of time you're there, but whenever I've gone to a rugby league game, my friend and I have always gone to a pub for a few hours before the game, watch the game then go back to the pub for more drinks, the amount we spent on drinks in one bar would equal 1/2 at the game.
I so agree with you regarding asking for tap water in a restaurant, the ridiculous cost of funerals and weddings and pretty much everything you said....
It can be a little messy, but you can buy inkjet refill kits to inject more ink into your cartridges. Of course, the tradeoff is the time it takes to carefully refill it
In UK, lots of courses don't need any books. At my uni every recommended book free virtually from library and could borrow from library. And books aren't year dependent so are normal book price.
Please do a video comparing American or UK internet and prices with Australian. I’m pretty sure we have the worst deal ever but would love to hear more
Okay but here's the best thing about deliveroo: My friend from Nottingham came to visit me (I live Birmingham ways) and left a whole bottle of gin at mine and was like "hey can you send it up to me or bring it next time you visit?" Sure thing, however, I know we visit each other every 3 - 6 months, so that gin will be gone by then. So I went on deliveroo and sent her a bottle of gin and donuts from the shop in town she loves. The deliveroo man was like "are you okay???" Handing over a full 1l bottle of gin and donuts to my friend... at 10am on a Tuesday... 🤣 But seriously tho it's a wonderful service if you've got friends scattered across the country and you want to show them some love (or mess with them) ❤
I've only ever bought Latin textbooks because we did the exercises in class/at home. All my other modules I just used library books or the university has a database with links to a lot of scholarly articles etc.
I brought a little fiat second hand around 8 years ago for about £4000, it was only a year old and had hardly any miles on the clock. Been a super little car. Back in the spring it got some damage to its underside and it was going to cost a couple thousand to repair which I assumed was way more than the car was worth so thought it’d be better value to by a new second hand one. Only when I looked I found that id have to spend at least £4000 now to buy exactly the same make and model as I already had, with 9 years and a bagillion miles on the clock! To by someone equivalent to what I bought 8 years ago I was looking at £15000 at least! So I shelled out the couple thousand and now it’s running fine again, and I actually saved money. Second hand car market was totally insane even before infection started.
Yes, I noticed the same. I bought a 2008 Chevrolet Spark in 2012 and it cost about £3000. As I've had it over 10 years I was thinking of changing it but for £3000 I would only get something about the same age as my current car!
Dear Evan, thank you so much for your downloads, I feel compelled to watch your videos as you bring common sense through the occasional pun. I have watched every video you have produced and its like watching a person grow but you have still elements that you have even in your first video. Thank you for the journey as although it has been a long journey it has been an entertaining and wonderful one. Bravo.
I got my Chevy Bolt in 2019 for $15,000. I could sell it today for $30k. Partly inflation and supply problems, partly the battery recall, and partly is just a great car. Not buying snacks at the theater means no more theaters. At least in the US. They only get 5% of the ticket sales at best for new releases, the rest of their money comes from concessions. Popcorn is awesome. It's super cheap, can be super easy to make, you can have it sweet or salty or both or chocolate covered. You can make decorations out of it... it's great.
Most US cinemas make a big chunk of their profits from their overpriced snacks (popcorn, candies/sweets, beverages). That’s why they don’t want you bringing snacks in with you. Regarding patents on medicines, US drug manufacturers have adopted a procedure known as “evergreening”. When their 20 year drug patent is about to expire they tweak the formula ever so slightly and just like that they get another 20 years on the patent. For example, let’s say there’s a medication that is known to cause sleepiness as a side effect. They’ll sell it that way for 20 years and then just before the patent is about to expire they modify the formula to include a stimulant that combats the sleepiness and voila! They get an additional 20 years. Then, they take the original version off the market. In the US that prevents other drug manufacturers from making a generic version. While many countries have regulations to limit this practice, over 75 of the top 100 medications in the US have been evergreened.
As a musician, players spend too much money on legacy guitars. There are hundreds of amazing affordable guitars and basses, but people still buy overpriced £2000 instruments because of their fave musicians and legacy. I guarantee, older musicians would have chosen the high-quality £500 instruments if they had them back in their day.
