http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Harmony-Remote-Control-Black/dp/B003AM8S3G

However, unlike gold and diamond, electronics are always depreciated by time. No matter the hardware and software. Do you see any computer from 1950s could be sold for $1,000,000? Well, I don’t. So, when you talk about overpriced electronics, they are NOT overpriced, but they are expensive. Because they carry new functionalities that you have never enjoyed before. However, they will be getting cheaper and cheaper if there are new technologies and functionalities have appeared. So, if you don’t have enough money to enjoy them right now, just wait.

For the same reason, you don’t have to pay $100 for a graphical calculator if there is a free software on the internet which can do the same thing or a new device came out and it is depreciated. However, you have to buy it if you don’t have the other options, or, simply do calculations by your hand.

The reason of different prices between internet and shops is simply the problem of labour and renting cost. You don’t have anyone who tell you information and give you services on internet. So, nothing about overprice again. As same as you could find different prices for a same watch or a same T-shirt in different shops…

Now, when are you going to make the exact same argument about broadband service–either wired or wireless variety?

It contains a Zilog Z80 processor (6MHz speed) = $1
The current iteration contains 512KB of memory =$0.10
And a 96×64 pixel monochrome display = $5

This device was introduced 21 years ago, and has had no significant update in that time. It contains hardware that is so old that all of those prices are guesses since they are no longer manufactured for anyone else. They can demand this high price because TI graphing calculators are so old that they are required in most classrooms.

THAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN OVERPRICED ITEM.

A/V accessories are overpriced because they are an area of high margins for TV and Audio retailers. They have all been pushed to operate on low margins on the actual devices so they mark up cheaper accessories. This is an understood and legitimate tactic in my book. A Gillette Fusion 5 razor is cheap, the blades are expensive as hell.

Now, those 3D glasses are expensive as hell because they rarely sell. Volume brings prices down, and they haven’t sold any volume and they probably never will(at least not in the active shutter 3D market). They know you really dont have any option, so they can put the price at whatever they want. You will notice that most retailers don’t put the 3D glasses near the TVs.

What?! Are you going to go after extended warranties next? LOL.

So much for the idiocy that fuels our insane marketplace. We’ve been on one long downward spiral to collective bankruptcy for some time now.

Oddly, those dealers who price their equipment high enough to actually stay in business to service the stuff when it breaks…or dare teach their clients how to use it fully…or even bother to make certain it is all connected properly and the obscure submenu setting combinations are correctly dialed in…seem to look like crooks at first.

Because everyone wants the lowest prices everyday…who cares what else goes away with that approach. Like the good local dealers…and the better vendors.

THOSE ethical and profitable dealers are the same ones who heartily agree with you (as I do), that this accessory rape must end. I am on your side here, with the exception of your idiotic comment about programmable remotes. I use that term specifically and with trepidation, but it IS idiotic. You’ve obviously never seen one of the higher-end Universal Remote Control (merely URC now, unfortunately for them) devices properly programmed and functioning…they can get even the most timid non-technical-significant-other enthused about using the hifi!

That said, just last week…I had to substitute a cheap Monoprice cable with a Key Digital one in order to stop a weird glitch between an LG plasma and the guy’s Sony Playstation 3. The cheaper cable must’ve had some sort of internal reflection that made the error correction fire up in the monitor’s video processing…I put the better cable in AS A WILD GUESS AND LAST RESORT…and the problem went away.

So, there just MAY be something to SOME of the better accessories…and I’ve always trusted the people at Key Digital to provide value. Their key dude was one of the early engineers for HDTV.

Now, if we could get on with the class-action lawsuit against the tyranny of HDMI…then you’d be doing some good for everyone. Except those grubbing Hollywood attorneys, of course!

Cheers and more,
John J. Gannon
Detroit