Bullshit. Do you have any idea what the R&D costs and the supply chain and manufacturing costs would be for a television? A modern television, I’m guessing, has maybe a thousand discrete components. Now we need to manufacture the set, which includes surface mount component placing equipment and manual soldering and mechanical assembly. Incoming inspection, in-process inspection, final inspection and test and packaging and shipping of a 40" unit in 60" overpack.
There is almost no R&D costs involved in glasses. The glasses contain fewer than 20 discrete parts total, and I’m even being generous here.
There is absolutely no reason such a simple commodity should cost as much. Each lens is indeed custom made, but so what? This drives to cost up to an HDTV?
Not particularly proud of it, but the last time I needed glasses and didn’t have either insurance or sufficient funds I talked about it here and several members of the Dope helped me out. Between that and already having decent frames I was able to get an exam and updated lenses.
But people shouldn’t have to beg in order to get properly corrected vision.
Your pupil-to-pupil distance doesn’t change. I ordered progressive lenses from Zenni based on an in-person exam from an optometrist here. They worked fine. (And so far my prescription has changed enough between exams that it does make sense to order glasses with the new prescription.)
I specifically said that it was a design compromise with the frame, not any lack of quality. My $400 American made glasses weren’t any better made or durable. And in fact, I’ve had other frames from Zenni that looked sturdier and would probably last 10 years, but they don’t fit me as well as these frames, so I’m willing to pay a $12 per year replacement cost for the best glasses I’ve ever owned.
Your glasses lasting two decades seems like an outlier. Most people get lens prescriptions updated in that time, and it’s hard to get anyone to fit lenses to your frames. And accidents happen. You can stomp on glasses, you can lose them - chances are someone is going to need to replace their glasses every few years. So at $400 a pop vs $12, the cheaper ones would have to break every week to come out behind. And even if not - surely you have a backup pair in case you break the primary, right? That’s another $400.
The cheap glasses are not cheaply made, they are actually quite high end with good materials and worksmanship. I took my first pair of glasses back to my opthamalogist to see if the prescription was right, and it was perfect. There might be other reasons to buy glasses locally - if you have visual insurance, it’s nice to have someone to help you pick out frames and fit them to you - but while you would indeed expect $400 glasses to be higher quality than $12 glasses, they actually aren’t.
You still need a prescription from a local opthamalogist - they’ll give you your PD if you ask for it.
And worth it in my mind. I pay about $400-$500 per pair. I try to reuse frames I like, but when I buy frames I buy them for style. It’s not vanity, it really affects how people deal with you.
Oh, goodness, yes, that the latest upsell bull at the major eyeglass chains! And wider field of vision, too (allegedly)
Right. The difference is such that I can essentially use them as “disposable” spares, heck, I may have a set done only in the distance prescription as driving sunglasses. And it’s not like I have much choice of “hometown” shops any more, or like the few remaining ones have much of a choice any more themselves if they want to carry the brands the public wants.
BTW I’ve noticed that at the chain stores they have sort of wised up on it and no longer write down the IPD where you can see upside-down what they are writing down…
As mentioned earlier, there’s the wholesale cartel effect going on in the US market, for both frames and lenses. And whenever some patent runs out on some lens technology or cosating or finish they come up with something else, e.g. the aforementioned “digital surfacing”, to upsell. In my case I try to keep using my frames and change only the lenses for as long as feasible (and boy you should see how that sends them into upsell-lens-options mode! It’s like car guys selling you undercoating! While if you say “I’m interested in those Genuine Ray-Ban Wayfarers[sup]TM[/sup]” then they’ll ease off a bit about the lenses) or else do mail-order.
Not often, but it can. But there’s more involved than just PD. With progressives how your pupils are centered in the frame both horizontally and vertically is important, and varies depending on the frame. This cannot be measured correctly unless you’re sitting face to face (my mentor when I started stressed adjusting my stool so I was “nose to nose” with the patient) with the optician fitting you while wearing the frames. It may even be necessary for them to know the distance from the cornea to the backside of the lens. This measurement is called the vertex, and can effect the effective power of the lenses, the same way holding a magnifier closer to or further from an object can change the focus.
And in response to SenorBeef, I routinely put new lenses in frames that were 20 or 30 years old. At my first job we had regular patients who had been wearing the same frame for longer than I’d been alive. Lenses cost (or should cost) the same in an old frame as a new. Also one lens should cost just half of the price of a pair. Charging extra for lens only or a single lens is dishonest.
I have had little problem getting people to fit new lenses to my frames - but that is partly dependent on the frames. When I purchased mine I deliberately selected a style that not only fit me and looked good but was relatively easy to fit new lenses to. I have replaced the lenses generally once every two years, either due to prescription changes or problems with scratches/damage to the lenses.
One concern I’ve had is that in over four decades of wearing glasses I have never broken a lens… but I have broken several pairs of frames. I can not afford crappy frames because I will break them. That’s one appeal of my current two pairs - they are very tough and durable.
Losing my glasses would be a bit tough - I wear them from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep, the only time they leave my face is when they’re being cleaned or I’m washing my face (I have been known to wear them in the shower or bath when cleaning parts other than my face). They aren’t readers I’d accidentally leave around the house.
My “spare” pair are the lenses from the prescription before - when I get new lenses I save the prior pair as backups. They unusually aren’t perfect correction, may be scratched, the coating may have deteriorated, but they’ll provide useful vision until the primary pair can be replaced.
There was a time in my life when I could afford two (or more) up-to-date pairs but not anymore.
While I understand the distinction between high quality and high price, I’m very leery of on-line purchasing. First, as I said, I’ve currently got two high-quality frames that I know to be durable I’d like to keep using. Very few on-line places will set new lenses in old frames, if you want that done you pretty much have to go to bricks-and-mortar.
When I look at a place like Zenni I note that a lot of the frames are actually half-frames - which I can’t use. My lenses, even with high-index materials, are too heavy for those. My lenses restrict which styles are practical. I can’t use “frameless” glasses either.
On top of that, my prescription is stronger than average, AND I’m now using bifocals. When I priced out my glasses at Zenni they came to $210. If you’ve browsed that site before you know just how much of an outlier that is.
Now, from what I’ve heard, Zenni probably IS capable of delivering my glasses with accuracy, but with a price like that the differential between brick-and-mortar local and on-line is much less for me than for others.
If anyone is curious - my last round with the optometrist came to $314 including exam and progressive lenses in my ridiculous prescription. That was utilizing my old frames. Yeah, it bites, but that’s what it takes for me to see 20/20.
I bought my last pair of eyeglasses 3 or 4 years ago and the cost was $800.In my case, I understand: my prescription was very strong so I was getting the compressed glass with beveled edges to minimize the “coke bottle” look. They were also progressive bifocals. So I wouldn’t expect them to be cheap.
What annoyed me was that the cost breakdown included, IIRC, around $100 to $150 was for UV coating, which I did not want. Not because of the price, but because the coating has a tendency to bubble after about a year, rendering the lenses useless. (*) For $800, I want a pair of glasses that I won’t have to replace in 12 months.
The optometrist told me that it was the law in Texas that the UV coating must be applied, so I had no choice. It pissed me off, though.
Anyway I have since had cataract removal and IOL implants, so no more eyeglass for me. Yay.
(*) Anticipating a few remarks: First, I realize not everyone has this problem, but maybe it is the air in Jakarta or something - for me, the deterioration is quite pronounced in a short period of time. Second, I do know the trick (thank you, internet) of buying glass-etching solution to remove the coating. This trick rescued several pairs of my glasses. The bottle of solution says “do not use on eyeglasses” but I figure the lenses are ruined anyway - what’s the worst that can happen?
Fairly soon they will invent tiny computers to run every regular pair of glasses, set in the hinges.
Connectible with Bluetooth, accepting voice commands, seeing greater distance, and colours-adjustible.
And they will charge double for these.
Sooner than later the anti-malware people will require regular subscriptions, thus moving your spectacles to the preferred thin-client rental model rather than ownership; and Microsoft will regularly provide Blue Screens of Death.
The OP is absolutely right. This isn’t some frivolous little expense that can be considered luxury. This is a day-to-day necessity. The first thing I do every morning is reach for my glasses. I could not function in modern society without my glasses.
I have insurance, so insurance pays for them. But there is no way that someone without insurance would be able to do so. I have astigmatism and lazy eye, and while it’s been surgically corrected, my glasses are still pretty strong and run in the hundreds of dollars.
I could rationalize the cost of the lens due to the unique quality of prescriptions (although there’s not really an infinite number of combinations) and single vision lenses with no astigmatism like mine are pretty generic. It’s the frames that are marked up. You pay for a branding, etc, and the privilege of free advertising for the designer whose logo is usually prominent visible on the eyeglasses.
I’ve ordered from goggles.com and have been pleasantly surprised. They are reasonable enough to be able to buy funky frames and have prescription sunglasses as well.
I am so grateful for my vision care insurance. My yearly premiums come to about $330. For a $40 copay, I get my annual exam, bifocal lenses with all the trimmings, and a $150 allowance on whatever frames I select (I always go for something that doesn’t have the name of a fashion designer or a magazine, so I make it in under the wire).
During her winter break from college, my daughter picked up a year’s supply of disposable contact lenses (including an exam that provided a minor adjustment to her prescription) with no co-pay at all.
kaylasmom, of course does not require vision care, so she’s not on that portion of my family’s health coverage.
R&D costs have nothing to do with this. The point is that things get a lot cheaper when you have a machine and a few cheap workers doing the same thing thousands of times a day. You can choose to believe in the existence of an enormous monopoly solely dedicated to callously raising the price of eyeglasses, or you can accept that economies of scale are what makes modern life cheap.
I never priced WalMart frames - when I went to WalMart I was very happy with the exam and the lenses I got, but I brought my own frames with me. Oh, by the way - did I mention WalMart had no problem putting new lenses in old frames? The only caveat I got over the phone was the lady doing the work said not all frames were suitable for that so she wanted to see mine before making a commitment. When I brought them in she took a quick look, said no problem, and it wasn’t a problem.
They had some fancy and high price options but when I mentioned I was on a budget they had no problem helping me work that out and I never felt any pressure to upgrade or spend more money than I had or wanted to spend.
Anyone who thinks glasses are exorbitantly expensive is either very young or very healthy. When you compare the cost of other health-related expenses, glasses are cheap.
I have to take a lot of prescriptions, and the copays can exceed $1,000/month, much more during Medicare’s “donut hole.” I buy glasses with pocket change.