Adobe's upgrade rort

[Mike Wickham]

>> Dov, don't read this: The price difference between "feuds" (read:
>> countries) is a total discrimination and should be fought against by
>> the UN.

> Especially in an age where data can be shunted around the globe with
> relative
> ease. The only barriers to pricing equality are notional, or if you like
> historical.

I don't know why a particular product would be priced differently in
different countries, or even care, but I could speculate that there are many
possible reasons:

- extra development costs to localize the software
- including updates
- cost of printing a package in an extra language
- cost of training and maintaining tech support in an additional language
- a cushion to cover currency fluctuations
- tariffs
- foreign taxes and the costs to track and file them
- costs associated with partnering with a foreign distributor
- etc., etc.
- and that's not even talking about countries where bribes are necessary, or
armed guards needed to protect your employees from being kidnapped and 
ransomed

When I was a retailer, I'd occasionally have a customer complain about the
price of an item, often declaring that he knew how much my markup was. Well,
maybe he did, but he didn't know my cost of doing business. Or I'd hear an
employee lament the size of his paycheck, saying "I know how much money this
place takes in." Well, maybe he did, but he didn't have a clue about how
much money was going out. It might cost me more per month to _rent_ the
storefront than it cost him each year to _own_ a home-- and that was just
one expense.

Anyone who complains about a business' pricing model, without knowing their
cost of doing business, has an empty argument.

Mike Wickham