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It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

news.com.au

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Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#81

Post by DanBC »

WhaleBiologist wrote: post #40
relix wrote: post #6

These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including Australia, but also almost every other count…

Once upon a time, the Australian dollar was worth about 50 US cents, so things in Australia cost about double what it cost in the US. Then the Australian economy started booming, and now the AUD is stronger than the USD. But everyone who sells stuff in Australia thought "wait a minute, these guys are used to paying double, so what incentive do we have to change?". So now you have retarded pricing, like some places ex…

> Unless Australian retailers change their tactics, they will slowly go out of business, because an entire generation of computer literate people realize you can get 2-3x more out of your money just by buying from online stores.

Buying online from overseas only works until the government put in place laws to prevent circumvention of technical rights protection measures. Like the DMCA in the US, or " European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society." in EU.

That means that turning your DVD into a region free player is illegal; chipping a console so it can play region locked games is illegal; etc.

It feels like a big scam.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#82

Post by criley »

Radim wrote: post #69
Wingman4l7 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because it's particularly insulting to the intelligence, especially when your customers are computer savvy people who know just how arbitrary region-based pricing of digital goods is?

Exploiting human irrationality and stupidity is one of the most venerable, time-proven ways of making money. If you feel your intelligence insulted, then don't buy it...? (aka, vote with your wallet, and let others do the same)

In this case, voting with your wallet puts you at a competitive disadvantage in your industry. What replaces Photoshop?

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#83

Post by bbromhead »

Same with cars, only the workaround is expensive or impossible. For example take a brand new Subaru wrx:

US starts at $25,795 Australia starts at $44,377

In both cases the car needs to be imported and also falls under Australia's luxury car tax so the comparison is reasonably fair. The more expensive a car is the worse it gets (a Nissan gtr will set you back 170k+).

Sure a little bit of this is first world problems, still annoying though.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#84

Post by icebraining »

criley wrote: post #82
Radim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exploiting human irrationality and stupidity is one of the most venerable, time-proven ways of making money. If you feel your intelligence insulted, then don't buy it...? (aka, vote with your wallet, and let others do the same)

In this case, voting with your wallet puts you at a competitive disadvantage in your industry. What replaces Photoshop?

If the value you're getting from using Photoshop versus the free alternative is greater than its price, maybe it's not completely arbitrary.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#85

Post by kabdib »

rmc wrote: post #63

This is a bug with the copyright system. The software is copyrighted and only Adobe can sell it. So they can sell what they want. One copyright reform I'd make, would be removing copyright protection from works like this where are sold as massively different rates between markets. You'd need to look at average wage in the country and compare (rather than a simple metric of 'can you fly to $OTHERCOUNTRY and buy it for…

Why not get it over with and just nationalize Adobe's products? Make them free for everyone? After all, Adobe takes advantage of the benefits of our free society, and they should give something back for that.

Oh, wait . . .

(/sarcasm, if it wasn't clear)

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#86

Post by Tloewald »

mattmanser wrote: post #75

What I never get about this and the differences in pricing in movies, music, books, branded clothes, etc. is that this is all tacitly approved by all the governments. That Nike or Adobe or whomever can stop people from buying it cheaper in one country and then selling it at a profit in another country is frankly bizarre. But then they'll throw a fit at each other if one country says 'no, you can't sell you're cheap b…

The government doesn't have much to do with it, it's all contract law. Adobe makes a deal with a local distributor -- we won't sell directly into your territory, we will label our goods so you can discriminate (e.g. not provide service or upgrades for "grey market" products).

The real scandal is that the sftware (or hardware) company sells its products at a wholesale price to the local distributor that prices in support, but has not agreed not to support it, and the the local distributor prices support into the local price. So you get lousy (lousier) support and are denied mothership support you paid for.

I don't know who the local distributor is in Australia (it might even be Adobe itself -- doesn't usually matter, it effectively works the same way) but back in the good old days it was firmware design (at least for macromedia products) and if you asked for support and the locals were no help and you persisted they'd simply escalate it to the US vendor. So you paid extra for friction.

It used to be worth flying to the US to buy a Mac. It's nice that Adobe is doing its part...

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#87

Post by jws »

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #5

There is no excuse why downloadable content should cost more -- economies of scale, shipping costs, and differences in taxes and exchange rates are all irrelevant. Even in the case of physical goods, the disparity is often drastically more than can be accounted for by the above reasons. This comment sums it up quite well: http://news.cnet.com/8618-1001_3-57568633.html?assetTypeId=1... There is a parliamentary committ…

no excuse is too broad.

If country X holds me liable under their law for selling goods in country X†, then I am either going to have to pay someone to understand that liability and quantify the expected variable cost, or just guess at it and hope.

If country X is a relatively small market for me those fixed costs amortized over the sales are going to be noticeable even if the risk per sale isn't higher than my home country.

␄

† Are they going to arrest me and keep me in jail when I come to speak at a conference? Are they going to nab me when a connecting flight lands on their soil and put me in jail? Are they going to enter a massive default judgement against me if I don't hire a defense each time someone files a claim? Can they collect those?

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#88

Post by stefap2 »

chiurox wrote: post #52

I'm surprised no one mentioned the exorbitant prices of electronics in Brazil compared to the US. For example, the top of the line Macbook 15" retina in the Brazilian Apple store costs R$12599 which is around $6395USD, while the same in the US is $2799. A Brazil/Miami return flight is also around $1000 depending on the time of year. So theoretically it's cheaper for Brazilians to go to Miami, have a nice weeklong vac…

And South Americans are actually doing just that. Travel to Florida and shop for prices 50% lower than in Brazil:

"The Sawgrass Mills mall has enough retail space to fill more than 40 football fields. Most notably, Sawgrass attracts destination shoppers from South America."

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/next-america/sawg...

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#89

Post by windsurfer »

Tloewald wrote: post #86
mattmanser wrote: post #75

What I never get about this and the differences in pricing in movies, music, books, branded clothes, etc. is that this is all tacitly approved by all the governments. That Nike or Adobe or whomever can stop people from buying it cheaper in one country and then selling it at a profit in another country is frankly bizarre. But then they'll throw a fit at each other if one country says 'no, you can't sell you're cheap b…

The government doesn't have much to do with it, it's all contract law. Adobe makes a deal with a local distributor -- we won't sell directly into your territory, we will label our goods so you can discriminate (e.g. not provide service or upgrades for "grey market" products). The real scandal is that the sftware (or hardware) company sells its products at a wholesale price to the local distributor that prices in supp…

Adobe does not sell their software this way. They have a sales office in Australia. Source: I worked there.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#90

Post by yuvipanda »

carlob wrote: post #65
stevoski wrote: post #36

I make sure my software my company creates and sells is more or less an equivalent price no matter where you buy it from. In the age of digital delivery, it seems the correct way to do it.

Then again, even books sometimes have a 'mass market edition' for countries like India, that costs about a fifth than the US paperback. I'm not sure it makes sense to sell at the same price all over the world. What does it even mean 'to sell at the same price', who defines the exchange rate? The exchange rate of some currency often reflects market forces and speculation, and the purchasing power parity exchange rate…

I buy the Mass Market Edition books in India. They're printed in much cheaper paper, many times in greyscale. Not the same.
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