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Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

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Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#281

Post by femto »

femto wrote: post #177
acomjean wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you also need to measure the distance between your eyes. The only not supper easy part.

Measuring Pupillary Distance (PD, or distance between your pupils) is easy! Here's how: 1) Stand in front of a vertical mirror, making sure you are square to the mirror. 2) Place a horizontal ruler on the surface of the mirror. 3) Close one eye and move your head until the reflection of the centre of your pupil lines up with zero on the ruler. 4) Keeping your head still, open your eye and close the other eye. 5) The…

Further notes:

a) The method works because placing the ruler on the surface of the mirror guarantees that it is parallel to the mirror. The source and destination of the light ray is your pupil, so the ray is guranteed to be perpendicular to the mirror and the ruler.

b) The plane of your pupils needs to be parallel to the mirror/ruler. This is easy to judge as your eyes will be relaxed and looking straight ahead at your own reflection in the mirror. If your eyes are looking left or right you need to turn your head so you are looking straight ahead. People are generally pretty good at judging "straight ahead", so chances are that you are doing this correctly.

Satisfying the above two constraints means the geometry gives an accurate measurement, probably more accurate than an optometrist can judge by holding a ruler up to your eyes and trying to guesstimate that they have no parallax error.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#282

Post by UIUC_06 »

cto_of_antifa wrote: post #131
UIUC_06 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been seeing the same ophthalmologist for years, but last time, they told me I needed to get the COVID booster for next visit. So there was no next visit. I have other doctors and a dentist, and none of them push that. He's also absolutely dogmatic and dismissive about how LASIK is safe (although he didn't push it for me). He did give me my PD, though.

Pretty messed up they wouldn't let you endanger them at their own workplace

... and yet no other doctor has that policy, or even a hospital. Pretty messed up that an ophthalmologist thinks he knows better than all of them.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#283

Post by postalrat »

dwighttk wrote: post #202
petilon wrote: post #19

Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything. You go to LensCrafters and prices seem super expensive, so you go to Pearle Vision and that's expensive too, so you go to Target Optical and prices are still high and then you think maybe glasses are expensive, since you went to multiple stores and they all have similar prices. What you don't realize is that…

I mean https://zennioptical.com https://www.eyebuydirect.com/ I’ve gotten my last 8+ pairs at one of those two (may have been a third but can’t remember) the most I paid was for some sunglasses where I wanted a few upgrades $80… the rest averaged $12

I just ordered a pair from zenni using their "fastframe" service. Not so much because I needed a pair fast. Just because they at least they cut the lenses to fit the frame and assemble them in the USA.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#284

Post by rolenthedeep »

imroot wrote: post #37
petilon wrote: post #19

Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything. You go to LensCrafters and prices seem super expensive, so you go to Pearle Vision and that's expensive too, so you go to Target Optical and prices are still high and then you think maybe glasses are expensive, since you went to multiple stores and they all have similar prices. What you don't realize is that…

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…

My fiance did store tech support, and holy SHIT I cannot believe that place manages to function day to day. There was some weird system that support staff had to RDP into, but the server was set to Spanish. Instead of, I dunno, fixing the language, all the support staff were given a document with translations of everything they need to use.

There was another HR system that support staff again had to RDP into to change passwords or personnel details or something. But it was so horribly misconfigured that there was a delay of minutes between keypress on the staff's client and response from the server. This task routinely took half an hour to update a few text fields.

Also yeah, they totally fucked him on hours and pay. The real big problem was the constant verbal harassment from store employees who are angry about systemic IT issues that have gone unresolved for years. One store has their internet drop out every single weekend. There's a ticket that's been open for years with hundreds of notes because the manager calls every weekend to report it.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#285

Post by int_19h »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #146
int_19h wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get outraged about things that they know about. (Most) tech monopolies don't attempt to hide behind many different brands.

And yet, most people don't know google own Waze, Youtube, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Chromecast and so on. They also don't realize most sites use Google Analytics, meaning your activity on a site completely unrelated to google is still recorded. They don't realize that Meta own not just Facebook, but also Instagram, WhatsApp or Oculus. They also don't realize all sites that use "share with facebook" send date to faceboo…

Anecdotal, but the non-techies on my personal circle are, on average, more critical of Google and Facebook than techies are. And they understand that those are monopolies on a very visceral level - because it's so hard to escape from them as a casual user.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#286

Post by selcuka »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #210
wrycoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. Bald-faced liar. BTW, the app is called PD Measure.

> My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. It's called a PD Ruler and it's literally just a mm ruler. Bald-faced liar indeed.

Correction: "the equipment to add PD to his prescription" is called a pen.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#287

Post by braunboffel »

citizenpaul wrote: post #127

Reminds me of the time I found out that golf balls and eink screens are also a "secret monopoly" kept by highly litigatious patents.

> eink screens are also a "secret monopoly" kept by highly litigatious patents.

Please share the evidence for this.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#288

Post by newyankee »

lupire wrote: post #231
paulmd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(not indian but this is my impression from what I've read) india has a very weird medical economy at times, geared to the costs necessary to deliver ultra-basic care to many people who are dirt-poor, utilizing generics (occasionally of questionable quality), the ultra-cheap cost of labor, etc. for example centchroman is an interesting case-study... the government basically paid to develop and take it through trials a…

India has very low labor costs, so you get a lot if all you need is something you can get by paying someone to do something with materials on hand, without substantial energy or rare materials.

What stops us from making , decent quality 20 $ glasses and selling in US for 50 $ max ? (inclusive of shipping, export duties etc)

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#289

Post by the_d3f4ult »

bluGill wrote: post #229
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Like a charm. Biggest potential hitch is that your optometrist will give you your prescription (they are required by law), but won't include your ocular measurements, which you then have to make yourself at home in order to order the glasses. Get the inter-ocular distance wrong, in particular, and your glasses will not work correctly.

Hint, when buy glasses ask about swim goggles - they will write down the PD distance (since they don't have swim goggles), and then you can keep that number. You still need to buy one final set of glasses, but you can get their cheap frames and be done.

Just ask for your PD. Nobody cares. I'be never heard of anyone sleazy enough to not give this information out.

Re: Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

#290

Post by the_d3f4ult »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #82
epmaybe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ophthalmologist or optometrist? Very different, and I think the difference needs to be overstated more and more.

I've been seeing the same ophthalmologist for years, but last time, they told me I needed to get the COVID booster for next visit. So there was no next visit. I have other doctors and a dentist, and none of them push that. He's also absolutely dogmatic and dismissive about how LASIK is safe (although he didn't push it for me). He did give me my PD, though.

I don't know anyone requiring a booster or even a vaccine for patients, but it's their practice and their health. Ophthalmologists are second only to ENT and Anesthesia in risk of contracting infectious diseases from patients due to our physical proximity to your face during the exam. Maybe that's what motivates their behavior.

Physicians do have to ask about vaccines and document the answer in order meet meaningful use requirements. Maybe this is what you experienced?

LASIK is safe, but when there are complications they're a big deal.

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