you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]samiiRedditBot 2 points3 points ago


While minimum wage in Australia is higher this is offset by higher taxes and other living expenses being also higher as well. Normally with the intent of providing for universal health care and other public services. Essentially you're brushing over a whole range of issues here, that basically come down to Australians being more willing to pay to the public purse rather than Americans who seem to be more willing to pay for stuff out of pocket. You can't simply take the gross value while ignoring how the differences of cost affect the net.

Also you're ignoring the cultural differences in minimum wages that are present in both counties as well, for example there is no culture of gratuities in Australia - that is tipping for services - while in America where such a culture does exist wages are normally intentionally kept low due to the difference being made up in tips. In Australia what your wage is, is what you earn.

What basically happened is that the Australian dollar used to trade much lower against the American dollar at around 65 cents rather than being worth about $1.05 that it's worth now. Abode simply never bothered to correct the price due to the change in the exchange rate but instead decided to pocket the difference. So I argue a "fairer" price would be one where both prices are closer to each other, where either Americans are paying more or Australians are paying less. Having one country paying such a disproportionally larger amount is simply gouging, in that it's taking advantage of the current international economic situation when it is for the benefit of themselves against the consumer. If the situation was reversed and the Australian dollar had lost value then I can guarantee that Adobe would have raised their prices in Australia to reflect this price difference, immediately.

Also let's not forget that this is pure capitalism. People keep buying their product, so why would they want to make less money? The goal of business is to make as much money as possible. And you're helping them. Complaining about the price won't do anything if you still go out and buy it, huffing and puffing your whole way to the store.

Look, it's all very well to lecture everyone on the first year economic topics of price setting functions or price elasticity but the thing you're forgetting is the issue of market power. Simply put Australia is a small market so Adobe simply don't see the need to be competitive in this market. You're not living under a condition of "pure capitalism" here because if that was the case then there would be a direct market competitor to Photoshop outside of open source projects such as Gimp. If I'm wrong and there does actually exist credible competition would you care to point it out? The only possible competition to Adobe was with Macromedia and guess which company brought them out, I'll give you a hint: It begins with an A and has five letters. However if you can not point to any competition then how can you possibly say this situation arouse due to the conditions of pure capitalism?

I think I can understand what's going on here: you're deliberately white knighting the company because it's dealing with a problem that doesn't affect you, since I assume you're not Australian. However I think this actually does affect you because it demonstrates just how greedy Adobe - and companies like them are - in pursuing their own interests above those of the consumer. And how much they would abuse their power if they had the same level of leverage against the American consumer given to them either via legislation or technology. And how much they are not to be trusted.

-- edit also if you're going to lecture people on economics can you at least read up on how inflation works so you don't say stupid stuff like:

If every person in the US today became millionaires, a haircut at your local barbershop would cost hundreds of dollars.

Which while literally correct completely ignores the issue of how much such a increase of the money supply would affect the economy.

[–]tchoob -1 points0 points ago


No, I'm not Australian. The purpose of my comment was not much different from yours, to state that Australians aren't so worse off because, for the most part, everything seems to even out.

But that last bit. About adobe having no other reason to have high prices than pure greed. You're absolutely correct. They are greedy. And while they may be morally inconsiderate, they are financially wise. It might be the 'Murica in me, but why would they go out of their way to make less money? Having competition would lower their prices, similar to the Internet provider situation going on in the US.

I've never understood the whole "make it harder on us to make it easier for others mentality". When I see it used by people, it's usually pretty clear that they're actually just doing it for self-worth. When a corporation does it, I'd imagine its generally the same thing. Or maybe they at least want to have the illusion of being a good company, which will therefore make people flock to them, in turn raising sales. Excuse the cliche but its a dog-eat-dog world, and it probably always will be.

[–]falkenB0T -1 points0 points ago


Hi Tim. You're a cunt