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How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

latimes.com

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Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#71

Post by mrob »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #32

How reasonable would it be to the prescription process; for example, a kiosk in the mall where I sit in a booth and click (better/worse) while looking into some-kind of a vision testing device. The whole thing is so procedural and really, not very difficult to administer. It seems like extremely low hanging fruit for automation.

Optimizing for just "better or worse" will result in excessively strong correction. If you're only looking at a single letter in the very center of your field of vision, then overcorrection feels sharper and easier to focus on. You don't notice the additional optical artifacts everywhere else. The ideal glasses have just barely enough correction.

However, this isn't an argument against automation, because human optometrists frequently get it wrong too. I agree that it should be automated.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#72

Post by superkuh »

beering wrote: post #20
forthispurpose wrote: post #17

What are some good online companies that are fighting this status quo?

Zenni is the main online company in the US selling eyeglasses for actually reasonably prices. Downside is that you don't get to try them on before you buy them, and I'm not a huge fan of their styles.

Zenni is great for frames. But if your eyesight is seriously bad (ie, -10 diopter) you're much better off getting lenses put into Zenni frames at a local optometrist. Zenni doesn't do things like lens edge bevel which becomes necessary once your eyeglasses are 1cm+ thick at the edges.

And no, high index of refraction lenses like Zenni pushes just makes things worse. High index lenses all have very low abbe number and their chromatic abberation is so bad at high diopter that I can even read the license plates of cars in the lane next to me while wearing them. They're only good for vision straight ahead.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#73

Post by Someone1234 »

beering wrote: post #18
jasode wrote: post #8

I was able to slash my eyeglasses expenditures in both the exams and the frames: eye exams: I used to pay the optometrist $153 ($117 refraction + $36 dilation). I later found out that Costco often has an optometrist on site in a tiny office and will charge just $59 (and add +$20 for dilation). That's less than half the cost of most other optometrists. frames: switched to Zenni online to avoid the LensCrafters/Pearle/…

I ended up with Warby Parker after decent experiences with Zenni. Warby Parker offers a home try-on service for free, where they ship you a pack of frames for you to try on (without prescription lenses). They also have a few retail stores. They still came out to be cheaper than Luxottica, and for something that I use for years, it ended up being worth it.

> Warby Parker offers a home try-on service for free, where they ship you a pack of frames for you to try on (without prescription lenses).

That's a really fantastic idea. Honestly that's a "missing piece" with a lot of online shopping (glasses, clothing, etc) or anything else you wear on your body.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#74

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

sampo wrote: post #56
jerf wrote: post #27

It's articles like this that make me wonder how much of our middle class burden comes from hidden rent seeking parasites like this. I honestly don't know. I'm not trying to imply any particular thing. I honestly wonder. These sorts of things can stack up through the layers of companies that make things. And where does this money go? What does it end up doing?

> how much of our middle class burden comes from hidden rent seeking parasites like this. If you include the unwillingness to respond to demand by building enough new homes in the popular urban areas, probably a lot. A 1000 sq.ft. home (house or condo) should not cost more than $200,000 to build. Anything above that, someone is making profit.

It doesn't even seem like anyone has interest in building $200,000 houses anymore, but they will sell you a poorly made condo for $400,000 and $600/mo HOA fees.

I am a single person trying to find a house that is not four or five bedrooms (I only need one or two) and doesn't cost 1/2 mil minimum and it's difficult. This used to be called "the starter house" but it doesn't seem to exist anymore with new construction.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

elektor wrote: post #6
walrus01 wrote: post #2

Without even opening the article I can predict that it informs everyone of what a behemoth Luxoticca is. As a person with a nearsightedness measurement greater than -5.5, it's something I had to educate myself on. Costco optical is a decent option for retail sales.

Do you need a Costco membership to buy glasses from them?

Yes.

https://customerservice.costco.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8...

That said, you don't to see their optometrists, if you want a cheap prescription to go use online.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#76

Post by igouy »

glitchc wrote: post #46

I respectfully must disagree with all of the claims here regarding zenni and costco, unpopular as it may be. They are only comparable at the low end but have no matching product at the high end. I bought a pair of glasses at costco for $200 as a backup to my daily rimless wearers. First, costco and zenni don’t have any rimless options. Second, the lenses I did buy ( partial frame) were their lightest but still signif…

> … and zenni don’t have any rimless options.

Categorical and plain wrong —

https://www.zennioptical.com/b/rimless-glasses

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#77

Post by Someone1234 »

ams6110 wrote: post #47

I think a big part of this is, like health care, insurance hiding the true cost from consumers. I have a vision plan as a benefit from my job. Covers exams and eyeware, so I have never paid more than a small co-pay for glasses and I had no idea what the cost was behind the scenes. The insurers don't care as they just pass the cost along to the employers who pay for the policies. The employers don't know any better. T…

It is worth noting that the same company selling you glasses also owns most Vision Insurance plans. The plans only cover their vendors.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#78

Post by ericmcer »

Can anyone speak to why you need an up to date prescription to buy glasses or contacts? It has never made an ounce of sense to me, yet I have been blocked from doing it in the past, gone through the rigamarole to find out my prescription is unchanged, and then bought them.

Re: How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

#80

Post by gergles »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #32

How reasonable would it be to the prescription process; for example, a kiosk in the mall where I sit in a booth and click (better/worse) while looking into some-kind of a vision testing device. The whole thing is so procedural and really, not very difficult to administer. It seems like extremely low hanging fruit for automation.

You can actually get a remarkably accurate prescription with no feedback at all.[1] You've almost certainly done this before as part of an eye exam. (Look in this machine at the balloon.)

The refraction portion of the eye exam is the least important one for medical reasons and the one that people think has the highest stakes (getting the right glasses.) The other parts of the eye exam (pressure testing, retinoscopy, etc.) are worth far more to your overall health.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorefractor

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