181–190 of 326 posts
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> Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? They can and they do [1]. They just don't have the same marketing budget, so you don't hear as much about them. [1] https://www.zennioptical.com/
Not to mention the pupillary distance is not commonly included on optical prescriptions which creates a significant hurdle, even though it can be measured yourself or usually given when asked.
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This gets into the weeds a little but the reason boils down to money and tradition, and “what is needed” is a shifting goalpost for society. Just thirty years ago you may have never even gotten an IOL due to tradition or cost. After adoption in the developed world there was a huge push to prevent lower income countries from accessing the technology because they “didn’t need” that technology and could benefit from low…
> The fact of the matter is that few patients benefit all that much from toric lenses that fix astigmatism. Most people have less than 1 diopter of astigmatic error, which they don’t even manufacture a toric lens for at any usable tolerance (the FDA allows a +/-0.50D tolerance to all lenses including torics), and surgical modifications can nullify that to some extent. I do think the cheapness of astigmatism correctio…
The other option you have is some form of refractive surgery. Also the wholesale cost of a toric IOL is somewhere around $700 so unless the surgeon fee is thru the roof it shouldn’t be costing you $3k each eye.
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I got it wrong the first time. He’s an MD ophthalmologist.
Unless there's need for specialized medical or surgical treatment, getting eye exams and eyeglass prescriptions from an ophthalmologist as opposed to a optometrist is like getting your teeth cleaned by an oral surgeon rather than a dentist. Astigmatism and/or myopia, refractive errors, corneal disease, amblyopia? Optometrist. Ptosis, proptosis, endophthalmitis, macular degeneration, excess tearing, detached retina or…
EDIT: also re corneal disease unless the treatment is a contact lens go to an ophthalmologist for that one too
No 'classic' glasses dealer makes their glasses in-house anyway. They all produce in cheap countries.
"Warby Parker recognized this as a business opportunity. I’m surprised others haven’t jumped in as well with reasonably priced eyewear." This author is uninformed. Others have jumped in. And Warby Parker wasn't even the first. 15 years ago I would buy my single-vision prescription glasses from optical4less.com. The cost was $58 for 2 pairs, including worldwide shipping. Today I buy my glasses from Zenni. Last month,…
You know, my family member bought a pair of cheap glasses for 2 $ in India. Granted it was probably not very powerful or may last long. But I am shocked at the definition of what is cheap. I am now skeptical if the glasses he bought actually work well enough for him.
It's wonderful for them. Everyone who has eyesight really wants to see clearly. After air, food, water, eyesight is kinda crucial. Maybe we should tithe them in thanks for not making it way more expensive.
Should we tithe Industrial Zones for not dumping more chem waste? Tip our wait staff for not spitting in our food?
I know people that worked in the industry and mention up-front they are good tippers to the servers ... just in case!
The basics are fine. I could use a $20 test and get fixed focus lenses cheap. Getting them to re-produce what I wear appears hard. I can't find anyone to explain the small piece of paper the machine spits out with a grid of numbers. (the very experienced ocular professor who assessed some structural eye issues for me used a 20second test machine and laughed at the professionals who still use the eye chart and a face sheet of lenses. He's confident they will ultimately stop using that stuff routinely, the box does it very well)
Probably there is a canonical formula to reproduce it, I broke a pair in flight once and took the bust lenses to an optician in Paris who made me a pair from the lenses in 2 days.
Some things demand fit. where the eye sweet spot is for variable focus depends how the lenses sit on your face.
Maybe breaking the monopoly on price starts with fixed focus or bi or tri focals first, not continuous variable focus.
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> I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again. $100 sounds like it's ~10x what the price should actually be for simple plastic shapes, and it's probably more than 100x the actual cost to manufacture them.
I assume that's $100 including the lenses—seems like a reasonable price for something that requires custom high-precision manufacturing, although it would be great for the price to come down even further over time. I have a moderately strong prescription (with slight differences for each eye) and I got the best glasses I've ever had from Zenni for $72.90 + tax. Could have been $60 without a presumably overpriced anti…
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I worked on the retail IT side of things at Luxottica. I don't even think that you've scratched the surface of just how prevalent Luxottica is: you've touched the retail side of things, but, you also haven't touched the manufacturing side of things (Lux has patents on the hinges used in glasses), the wholesaling side of things (Lux supplies generic and branded frames to your local optician on less-than-preferred term…
Glasses aren't that expensive. I buy them from https://zennioptical.com I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again. The sunglasses that we buy in a drugstore can be had for paltry sums, why not prescription eyewear?
They're especially good for cheap prescription sun glasses. I bought a whole stack of them years ago I'm still working through. If I go to the river or where ever and something happens to them I'm out $25 instead of $250.
It also helped that the last time I went to a local shop it proved to be a ridiculous experience. I ordered a pair of clear acrylic frames, and for whatever reason when they came in the sales clerk got bored and thought it'd be interesting to use highlighter on the insides of the frame to see what it looked like. But then it wouldn't come off so she just kinda tried to play it off like nothing happened when I picked them up. It was completely absurd. I had to wait another month for them to reorder.
So yeah, eyeglasses are now one of those categories of local businesses where I've learned they're basically all scams.
Related: it's getting hard to find a cleaner that does alterations in house vs mailing them off to a service. Last couple times I've had to do that it turns into a 4 to 6 week long game of "where did your clothing disappear to and will the store find it this time or tell you to come back in a week yet again."
Why is it so many of these simple services increasingly feel like total scams in the US?