
It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia - JumpCrisscross
http://www.news.com.au/technology/biztech/it-is-cheaper-to-fly-to-us-than-buy-adobe-software-in-australia/story-fn5lic6c-1226576920561
======
Wingman4l7
There is no excuse why downloadable content should cost more -- economies of
scale, shipping costs, and differences in taxes and exchange rates are all
irrelevant. Even in the case of physical goods, the disparity is often
drastically more than can be accounted for by the above reasons. This comment
sums it up quite well:
[http://news.cnet.com/8618-1001_3-57568633.html?assetTypeId=1...](http://news.cnet.com/8618-1001_3-57568633.html?assetTypeId=12&messageId=13633335)

There is a parliamentary committee currently looking into this disparity in
pricing: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57568633-92/apple-
microsoft...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57568633-92/apple-microsoft-
summoned-in-australian-pricing-probe/)

~~~
icebraining
Why would they need an "excuse"? Pricing is only indirectly related to costs;
doubly so with software, where gross profit margins are often higher than 90%.
Why is this particular arbitrary price bad, while other arbitrary prices
aren't? Sure they'd still make money if they charged the same, but so what?

~~~
Wingman4l7
Maybe because it's particularly insulting to the intelligence, especially when
your customers are computer savvy people who know just how arbitrary region-
based pricing of digital goods is?

~~~
Radim
Exploiting human irrationality and stupidity is one of the most venerable,
time-proven ways of making money.

If you feel your intelligence insulted, then don't buy it...?

(aka, vote with your wallet, and let others do the same)

~~~
crosvenir
I'm not saying it's without merit, but my blood pressure raises a little every
time I hear this argument. It comes across as, "STFU and don't buy if you
don't want it!"

When in reality, the original consumer considered this but would rather pursue
a more active response than to sulkily and more important silently use
something else.

Yes "voting with one's wallet" is certainly an option. But it should not be
the sole option as you seem to suggest.

~~~
Radim
That's fine, there are indeed more options! Nobody mentioned silence :)

You can start a newsletter, informing fellow inflicted customers. Tell your
friends and family. Launch a slandering campaign on facebook/internet (within
the bounds of law, preferably!). Support a competitor. Promote fewer business
regulations, so there are more competitors. Post on Hacker News. Etc &c,
depending on one's disposition.

But my blood pressure raises every time I hear someone's blood pressure
fluctuated and _they want to pass a global regulation affecting everyone
(incl. me) because of it_. No, thanks.

~~~
Dylanlacey
I, personally, don't want global legislation. I want either companies to not
act like total dicks (Pricing in Ethiopia _should_ be lower, pricing in
Australia _shouldn't_ be twice as much) OR for the AUS and US governments to
make a joint agreement to, at the least, issue a large, nasty "Please Explain"
from a body of authority.

But I am also coming from a background where the governmental consumer
watchdog is very powerful, so that colours my opinions on what can/should
usefully be done.

------
PeterisP
It's all the fault of Aussies themselves - if they want to fix this, they
simply need to ensure (through their lawmakers) that the first sale doctrine
applies fairly as intended, and within a week there will be redistributors
selling legal boxed Adobe software (imported from US) for decent prices.

It wouldn't be equal to USA prices, since VAT and some markup would apply, but
if there is any competition whatsoever, there won't be a markup of $1000 for a
single box.

~~~
damian2000
There's nothing stopping anyone from ordering from the US (eg. on amazon),
apart from the extra GST (10%) added on top by aussie customs. On Amazon its
only $2166 + 10% GST

[http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65167117-CS6-Master-
Collection/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65167117-CS6-Master-
Collection/dp/B007R0RJRS/)

In fact you can get the software locally for as low as $3550 if you shop
around - [http://www.softwaresite.com.au/adobe-software-/69-adobe-
cs6-...](http://www.softwaresite.com.au/adobe-software-/69-adobe-cs6-master-
collection-.html)

The main issue is the RRP (recommended retail price) put out by the developer
(Adobe) which is totally ludicrous. My favourite is Microsoft AU's official
RRP for the Windows 8 Pro Upgrade at AU$399. In the US its $199.

In my opinion, home users tend to shop around more and will be able to spot a
bargain, but business users will probably be the ones being ripped off.

~~~
wtvanhest
"Ripped off" is really the wrong term for the pricing discrepancy created by
having different places to buy the software within one market. The better term
is "price discrimination".

Business users of everything are less price sensitive so intelligent sellers
of services, software, hardware etc. attempt to capitalize on them through
price discrimination.

In this case, Adobe (or distributors) are aware that businesses would rather
not have someone shopping around for software when they could be doing
something else more productive so they would pay more. The seller is able to
capture the surplus. This is a good article that at least early on focuses on
inconvenience as the mechanism for price discrimination:
<https://www.rca.org/page.aspx?pid=2995>

Because of the comment before your's, I am not sure whether Adobe is using
price discrimination against Australian customers but pharmaceutical companies
do price discriminate based on geographic location. (There is also a mention
of this in the article above).

Effective price discrimination is a way to extract the correct price from
various customers and ignores costs.

If a customer nets value by purchasing a product, the product is priced fairly
to them. Different users of the same product get different values, so every
seller should try to figure out a way to get price as close to the value
gained for each purchase for each customer.

The effect of price discrimination is higher profits for the seller, but it
also spreads the cost of R&D more fairly based on value received by buyers.
Theoretically PD should drive increased innovation long term.

~~~
jahmed
I've always thought first-sale doctrine is an interesting and important check
on price discrimination. People usually get angry with the concept of price
discrimination, it seems to grate at the idea of fairness. Poorly or
improperly implemented price discrimination coupled with a strong first-sale
doctrine will lead to interesting new arbitrage opportunities.

The pending case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc is a good example of
arbitrageur vs price discriminator. The result of witch will be really
important.

------
relix
These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much
more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't
know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's
been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more
cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including
Australia, but also almost every other country.

For example in Europe, the same suite mentioned in the article costs USD
4552.14, or $200 more expensive even than Australia.

~~~
Nursie
Australia is extremely expensive for a lot of stuff. Europe is too, but less
so (having lived in both).

Part of this is that the AUD has appreciated in value so much over the last
few years, and retailers are just not willing to drop their prices in line
with the new purchasing power of the dollar. They also haven't caught up with
the modern world in a lot of ways, considering that they still have a captive
audience that can't just order off the 'net.

Part of this is down to protectivist legislation, for instance the price of
books over there is huge and that is in part due to measures put in place to
protect local authors and publishers. The net result though is that bookshops
go out of business because people just get stuff online, delivered from other
parts of the world. There are also weird legally-backed 'exclusive importer'
agreements that result in the same phenomenon with other goods.

Part of the problem is retail rental rates are so high that traditional
retailers have to have high prices, and in Oz the online services are usually
run by the same folks. So again, business goes abroad.

Part of the problem is that some foreign businesses (Blizzard, I'm looking at
you) just gouge Australians. Starcraft II was a hundred bucks to buy online
from Australia!

So there's a whole culture of stuff just being expensive over there. The
government needs to clean up their own act, but looking at what the private
sector tries to pull is also interesting.

Incidentally Apple seemed to me to be one of the few organisations that were
not overpriced over there, comparing US and AU prices on their store it was
always pretty even (when tax was accounted for)

~~~
rmc
_Part of this is that the AUD has appreciated in value so much over the last
few years_

Yep, many other countries have had economic downturns lately, a lot of
australian economy is based off mining, which is going OK. Ergo, currency
appreciates.

 _Part of the problem is retail rental rates are so high_

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! That's partially a sign that the property market is in a
bubble or inflated. Many other countries have been wrecked when the property
bubble pops. It _might_ happen in Australia.

~~~
obiterdictum
Property bubble has been predicted in Australia for _years_ now. I was waiting
for a market crash for years too, but now I'm not entirely convinced. With
high urban sprawl, poor transport options, growing population and generally
high income, I'm not surprised property costs as much as it does now.

------
chiurox
I'm surprised no one mentioned the exorbitant prices of electronics in Brazil
compared to the US. For example, the top of the line Macbook 15" retina in the
Brazilian Apple store costs R$12599 which is around $6395USD, while the same
in the US is $2799. A Brazil/Miami return flight is also around $1000
depending on the time of year. So theoretically it's cheaper for Brazilians to
go to Miami, have a nice weeklong vacation, buy a Macbook Retina, iPhone,
iPod, iPad, clothes, and much more, than buy a single Macbook here and still
wait for shipping. The problem is the government/customs knows that and thus
catches and taxes a lot of people who try to bring over $500USD worth of
products. And for whoever mentions that the cost of living is cheaper in
Brazil, the big cities like Sao Paulo is the same or worse than NYC if you
factor in salary.

~~~
mfenniak
> The problem is the government/customs knows that and thus catches and taxes
> a lot of people who try to bring over $500USD worth of products.

Does this mean the difference in the price of the Macbook is entirely taxes?
Or, after paying an import duty at the airport, would the overall cost still
be lower than buying the hardware domestically?

~~~
com
My friends in São Paulo just did that with an iMac - bought it in Arizona
during their Christmas trip to the US, declared it at Guarulhos airport, paid
the import imposts and still came in with a huge discount to the local retail
price.

~~~
mikeryan
Cost of flight to AZ + Cost of iMac + Cost of Imposts was a huge discount or
just the Cost of iMac + Cost of Imposts?

~~~
com
Yeah, still at least a headline discount of 20-25%. And they were going to AZ
anyway, so it felt like 40-50% to them. Everyone was wearing new shoes too,
prices in the US are significantly cheaper than in São Paulo

------
mattmanser
What I never get about this and the differences in pricing in movies, music,
books, branded clothes, etc. is that this is all tacitly approved by all the
governments. That Nike or Adobe or whomever can stop people from buying it
cheaper in one country and then selling it at a profit in another country is
frankly bizarre.

But then they'll throw a fit at each other if one country says 'no, you can't
sell you're cheap bananas here' and all start blathering about free trade.

Free trade is good in everything apart from IP apparently.

~~~
Tloewald
The government doesn't have much to do with it, it's all contract law. Adobe
makes a deal with a local distributor -- we won't sell directly into your
territory, we will label our goods so you can discriminate (e.g. not provide
service or upgrades for "grey market" products).

The real scandal is that the sftware (or hardware) company sells its products
at a wholesale price to the local distributor that prices in support, but has
not agreed not to support it, and the the local distributor prices support
into the local price. So you get lousy (lousier) support and are denied
mothership support you paid for.

I don't know who the local distributor is in Australia (it might even be Adobe
itself -- doesn't usually matter, it effectively works the same way) but back
in the good old days it was firmware design (at least for macromedia products)
and if you asked for support and the locals were no help and you persisted
they'd simply escalate it to the US vendor. So you paid extra for friction.

It used to be worth flying to the US to buy a Mac. It's nice that Adobe is
doing its part...

~~~
belorn
Its the government that gives out copyright protections. It is the state that
grant monopoly power to Adobe. The Australian government could have any rules,
laws and consumer protection in place in return for this granted monopoly, and
thus limit how companies like Adobe abuses this granted monopoly in Australia.

------
spyder
If you buy the US version of Adobe software then using it in another region is
not allowed in their EULA. So it's almost the same as torrenting it except you
paid for it. After a quick look I found these in their EULA:

"Adobe grants Customer a non-exclusive and limited license to install and use
the Software (a) in the territory or region where Customer obtains the
Software from Adobe or Adobe’s authorized reseller or as otherwise stated in
the Documentation (“Territory”)"

"4.9 Territory. Customer shall only use the Software and access the Adobe
Online Services in the Territory and in a manner consistent with the
activation policy described at <http://www.adobe.com/go/activation>. Adobe may
terminate the license granted herein or suspend the Membership or access to
the Adobe Online Services if Adobe determines that Customer is using the
Software or Adobe Online Services outside the Territory."

~~~
crazygringo
So... technically, that means that if I (an American) go on a business trip to
Australia, open my laptop and use my paid-for copy of Photoshop, Adobe could
terminate my license?

How absolutely lovely.

------
cletus
As an Australian (now an NYC resident), I am no stranger to the price gouging
that Australians have had to suffer although I must say that how it is now is
much, much better than it was 10-20 years ago.

First, it's worth noting that US prices don't include sales tax. Australian
prices include a 10% GST.

Second, international companies will end up doing their accounting in one
currency. For tech companies unsurprisingly this is US dollars. Transactions
in foreign currencies get converted to USD. Companies hedge themselves against
FX risk by locking in exchange rates and giving themselves a buffer so they
don't need to change prices every day. Ergo, things in foreign currencies will
always cost a little bit more.

So if a Macbook Air costs US$999 and A$1099 (hypothetical, the Apple store is
down so I can't check what the actual price is) then that's about right (given
A$1 = ~US$1.04).

That all being said, high prices in Australia largely come from it being a
small market and, more importantly, consumers putting up with it.

Books are the worst example of this. UK companies get the distribution rights
for Australia. Australian copyright law largely protects them from imports
(although this was relaxed by the previous Howard government in a 1am Senate
vote). Yet what costs $10 in the US will cost $25 in Australia.

The Dell E6x00 laptops routinely cost <$!000 in the US but cost ~$2.5k in
Australia for no readily apparent reason (it's been a year or two since I
looked at this so it may have changed).

The "waterbed effect" seems to play a part too. The US is a large single
market so has a lot of purchasing power compared to pretty much any other
market. I've thought that cameras are cheaper in the US (than Europe or
Australia) for this reason more than anything else.

To give an Australian corollary to this: Dan Murphy, the largest alcohol
retailer owned by one of the two supermarket conglomerates (Woolworths), is
killing smaller competitors because their purchasing power is so large they
can often sell things (at a profit) for less than non-chain stores can buy
them wholesale.

For software in the era of digital distribution there's no justification for
Adobe's prices here. It's the same software in the same language. Perhaps they
needed different TOS/EULAs for Australia (or at least have them reviewed to
make sure they are compliant with Australian law). That's about it.

One thing to be thankful for is the ACCC in Australia actually has teeth and
through the Trade Practices Act and Corporations Act has a lot of power. The
FTC in comparison seems to be a partisan paper tiger in comparison.

~~~
sailfast
Thanks for bringing up the currency risk - while certainly not responsible for
the entire price difference, the cost for hedging risk against foreign
currency in Australia has increased quite a bit according to the Australian
central bank (from 5-10 basis points to 30-40 -
[http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2010/mar/html/box-b.h...](http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2010/mar/html/box-b.html))
which will definitely put a dent in your profit margin if you start accepting
Aussie dollars.

~~~
tomsaffell
Thanks for looking that up and providing some data. But 30-40 basis points =
~0.35%, which is ~1/300th of the ~100% difference in price, so it seems like
it's not a significant factor.

------
SeanDav
The same thing happens in the UK. Napster for example charges more than 50%
more for a download service in the UK, than in the USA. Completely ridiculous
for an internet based download service.

I was going to subscribe until I learned this. Can't support business's
gouging their clients.

~~~
DrJokepu
Is it possible that the royalties Napster has to pay in the UK to PRS, PPL,
etc. are higher then what they have to pay in the US to ASCAP, BMI, etc.?

~~~
SteveC
VAT also adds 20% to the price.

------
robertlaing
Voila, monopoly in action.

I have both a grudging respect and an intense dislike of Adobe for their
complete ownership of the creative software space. It's kind of amazing, and
it's the clearest example of a monopoly that I experience in my everyday life.
Well done, I guess?

~~~
rimantas

      > Adobe for their complete ownership of the creative
      > software space
    

How is that their fault? What should they do, develop an alternative to
Photoshop themselves?

~~~
richardwhiuk
They probably shouldn't have been allowed to buy Macromedia.

------
yumraj
There are two ways of looking at this, as a consumer and as a company.

As a consumer obviously we want everything to be cheaper, not just compared to
elsewhere, but in general. Who wouldn't like Apple products to be cheaper, or
cheaper DSL, cheaper cable etc.

As a company you're in it to make money, period. Pricing is one of the most
complicated and imprecise things a company has to deal with. Once you set a
price you basically anchor yourself to it in case you later find out that that
price was low and you could have charged higher. If you set the price too high
then there is always the option to go lower, or offer discounts. You also need
to take into account different categories of customers, based on region in
this case, and try to price discriminate such that you are able to charge the
price that would bring maximum profit (not revenue) and where people cannot go
across these categories to buy another comparable product. For example,
senior, student, children discounts for movie tickets. Then there are com
parables you need to take into account, like Coke and Pepsi are substitutes to
an extent, Photoshop and Gimp are not. IntelliJ and Eclipse are, so IntelliJ
has to make sure it is offering value for which it can charge.

Microsoft also does regional pricing, and its products are dirt cheap in China
and other economies where there is rampant piracy, since there it is
effectively competing with its own product being offered for free.

Companies always try to maximize profits and if they can get higher profits
and are not anchored to a lower price, they will do so. There is nothing wrong
with it, its just business, which pays our salaries and also for entrepreneurs
keeps our investors happy.

------
jonob7
Its not only Aus.

Example: price of Creative Suite® 6 Design Standard is USD1,299 versus
GBP1,227, despite the fact that the exchange rate is around 1.55.

For some stupid unknown reason, Adobe will usually charge the same unit price
in GBP as they do in USD. They will quote "cost of operating" is higher in the
UK, but 55% higher? Bullshit.

~~~
lunchladydoris
Don't forget the 20% VAT which is included in the British price. The US price
doesn't include any tax.

~~~
thisone
though VAT makes up for some of the difference, it doesn't make up for nearly
1:1 USD:GBP pricing.

If they can charge it, they will.

That assumes all companies charging an extra percentage are actually paying
their VAT bills as well.

~~~
nicholassmith
VAT is avoidable, but the tax man makes that sure that no one is going to.

However, corporate tax and a few other bits and bobs payable on overall
revenue are perfectly avoidable if you channel it out and about.

------
mattvot
Can someone explain why tech stuff in general is quite a bit more expensive in
Australia comparatively?

~~~
jacques_chester
Two main reasons.

1\. Australia is a small market, so for a lot of things there are poor
economies of scale and/or cozy oligopolies.

2\. Exchange rates.

Then along came:

3\. Artificial market segmentation.

Region encoding, per-country versions and so on. There's no technical reason
for this, it's done simply because (thanks AUSFTA) it _can_ be done.

The artificial segmentation didn't used to be a big problem until the AUD shot
up against the USD. Now that our dollar is at approximate parity with the
American, it's very easy to compare prices.

Mix in the fact that retail prices have remain steadfastly fixed in place _in
spite of the change in exchange rate_ , and consumers have correctly deduced
that retailers and distributors are simply taking a windfall and running with
it. That nobody is aggressively undercutting goes back to 1.

~~~
caf
You've got to wonder why they haven't tried artificial market segmentation
between US States yet.

~~~
cturner
Could there be something in the constitution to prevent it? The Australian
constitution is derived from UK and US, and section 92 mandates free trade
between states.

Update: it seems there is.
[http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010032513551...](http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100325135519AAfEVen)

~~~
jacques_chester
This isn't relevant; it only governs the actions of the US Congress. Australia
has similar language to prevent the Commonwealth Parliament from
discriminating between the states.

------
heldrida
Looking for a Photoshop alternative ? Please take a look into Gimp, I'm using
it for a long time now. If the money you pay for licensing Photoshop was put
in new creative ideas in Gimp, I'm pretty sure it would look as awesome, as
Photoshop! Take a look please :)

~~~
spikels
This is the real solution to the "Adobe problem". They are still living in the
old world of high priced software and are able to charge these ridiculous
prices because they don't face any real competition. Gimp is pretty good but
still needs lots of work and/or a killer feature or two to convince people to
abandon Adobe. Contribute to Gimp if you can!

~~~
heldrida
That's so true! What I see is, there's so many creative people using
Photoshop, putting so much money into Adobe. They could contribute with their
own views, ideas, needs, etc. Gimp would become ridiculous good just because
of that!

------
vabole
Or you could just get a VPN for $10 and buy Photoshop online from the US
website.

~~~
dagw
Are you allowed to do that? Or to put it another way, if you got raided by the
BSA, would they have a problem with that?

~~~
thisone
how would they differentiate from someone like me, who has software bought in
the US, while living in the US, but who now lives in the UK?

~~~
dagw
I imagine it's pretty easy to find out if someone has been living in the US
within the past N month or not.

------
DutchessPDX
You want to know the real reason prices are so much higher in other countries?
It has to do with historical exchange rates and companies not adjusting prices
when the exchange rate improve in their favor.

Let's look back 10 years ago. Around 10 years ago AU$1 was worth about
US$0.60. So, at the time if the US version sold for US$2500 you would need to
sell the Australian version for about AU$4166 (before any tax difference) to
make the same US$2500.

Now, fast forward 10 years. Over this period Australians have become used to
paying about AU$4k for the product but in the background the exchange rate
continued to improve in favor of the AU$, to the point where today were the
two currencies are worth about the same (AU$ are actually worth slightly more
now). BUT because Australians are used to paying the price, there has never
been any incentive for Adobe to reduce the price. The same applies for video
games, or just about anything else on the market.

Now, I'm not defending Adobe, but from a business perspective I can understand
how this happened. You have an exchange rate that slowly creeps up over 10
years. You don't see sales dropping, so why reduce your price, right? This is
now the predicament they're in, they kept the price steady and now they have
to pay the price with media attention. So, what t

Had this been the other way, and the exchange rate declined for the AU$, you
can be damn sure Adobe would have taken corrective price action.

------
lunchladydoris
I wonder how the piracy rate in Australia (for CS and more generally) compares
with that in the US.

Anyone have any figures?

~~~
nwh
I work in the design industry in Australia, and it's very rare for anyone to
have a legitimate copy. By no means quantitative data, but the piracy rate is
probably quite high. Adobe doesn't exactly make it easy by dropping backwards
compatibility for a version behind.

~~~
dorian-graph
Alternatively, I also work in the design industry and have friends who do and
aside from students, most have a legitimate license from my experience and
also speaking for myself.

------
chris_wot
I once asked how much it cost for the Jonathon Coulton song on iTunes in the
U.S. as opposed to the price in Australia. I was downvoted to oblivion. [1]

It's been known for some time now that Australian are being gouged by
multinational and local corporations. There should be no real reason why
iTunes is more expensive in Australia than in the U.S. - our exchange rates
are on a par with the U.S. (and in fact, at times exceeded the U.S. dollar!)
and there is no real tangible transport costs. Even a 10% consumption tax
doesn't explain the difference in prices between the two countries, for the
same product.

1\. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5123513>

------
klausjensen
I have always held off buying Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom for myself,
because it is very expensive. One day about 2 years ago, I saw an ad
somewhere, that I could buy a bundle of both pieces of software for 800USD (I
think it was). Seems fair, I thought and went to buy it online in Adobe's
shop. But as a European, I was forced to the store of my country (Denmark) and
the price was at least double. I tried buying from the us shop (since no
physical delivery was needed), but was rejected for using a Danish credit
card.

I still don't own Photoshop and Lightroom and Adobe is out 800 USD.

------
UnoriginalGuy
Seems they've fixing it:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732488050457829...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324880504578299313556370482.html)

------
stevoski
I make sure my software my company creates and sells is more or less an
equivalent price no matter where you buy it from. In the age of digital
delivery, it seems the correct way to do it.

~~~
carlob
Then again, even books sometimes have a 'mass market edition' for countries
like India, that costs about a fifth than the US paperback.

I'm not sure it makes sense to sell at the same price all over the world. What
does it even mean 'to sell at the same price', who defines the exchange rate?

The exchange rate of some currency often reflects market forces and
speculation, and the purchasing power parity exchange rate can be wildly
different. In some countries, such as Zimbabwe, the exchange rate with the USD
depended strongly on who you were and where you bought it! [0]

Maybe you could define a hourly-rate-equivalent-price: if a Photoshop license
costs $2500 [1] in the US and one hour of the median Photoshop-using
professional is worth $25 in the US, then Photoshop should cost like 100 hours
of work in the country where you sell it, so maybe 500$ in India and $200 in
China.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar> [1] All the numbers that
follow are pulled out of my own ass

~~~
yuvipanda
I buy the Mass Market Edition books in India. They're printed in much cheaper
paper, many times in greyscale. Not the same.

~~~
carlob
True, but are they worth so much less? Do you think that any publisher would
sell their textbooks as ebooks for the same price to US students and to Indian
students?

------
ocirion
This reminds me of a story[1] around 8 years ago of the eye-watering costs of
ADSL in South Africa. Whereby it was cheaper to fly to Hong Kong and download
100GB of data in an internet cafe than it was from home using the incumbent
telco provider, Telkom.

[1] [http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/cheaper-to-fly-
than-u...](http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/cheaper-to-fly-than-use-
adsl-1.258692#.URuo-tdcZNo)

~~~
zaidmo
I remember that! We also had the "Carrier Pigeon paster than ADSL" saga -
we've made progress in SA!

------
bbromhead
Same with cars, only the workaround is expensive or impossible. For example
take a brand new Subaru wrx:

US starts at $25,795 Australia starts at $44,377

In both cases the car needs to be imported and also falls under Australia's
luxury car tax so the comparison is reasonably fair. The more expensive a car
is the worse it gets (a Nissan gtr will set you back 170k+).

Sure a little bit of this is first world problems, still annoying though.

~~~
yuushi
Actually, a WRX won't have the luxury car tax applied to it; from Wiki: The
LCT threshold is currently $59,133.00AUD. Car pricing in Australia is pretty
horrific, which is probably due to both taxation and the government trying to
protect local manufacturers.

~~~
bbromhead
You are quite right. I meant to say underneath the lct threshold. Thanks for
clearing that up

------
digitalengineer
Old news. Adobe is currently at Creative Suite 6. Here's an article about
Creative Suite _3_ : UK will pay £1,000 more for Adobe CS3
[http://www.zdnet.com/uk-will-pay-1000-more-for-adobe-
cs3-303...](http://www.zdnet.com/uk-will-pay-1000-more-for-adobe-
cs3-3039286561/)

It would appear people keep buying it or Adobe would have changed the policy.

------
Aissen
Nothing new here. An article from 2008:
[http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1048488/adobe-
cs4-p...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1048488/adobe-cs4-pricing-
completely-bananas) TLDR; it was cheaper to fly to NYC from London, buy the
suite there, then go back, than it was to just buy it in the UK.

~~~
megablast
When I was living in the UK in 2005, it was cheaper to fly to new york and buy
a IBM Thinkpad Laptop, than it was to buy one in the UK. The US price in
dollars was the same as the UK price in pounds, even thought $2=£1. And the
return flight to new york was only £200. Buy two, and you could make a nice
little profit.

------
highlander
This reminds me of working for a software tools company in the late 90's,
selling IDEs and metrics tools to investment banks and telcos. One day, a
potential customer called to ask about the price of a license. "1500", my boss
said. "1500 what?", asked the customer. "Where are you?". It's a good thing
the customer wasn't in Japan...

------
josh_fyi
Some price comparison site should set up a how-much-it-would-cost-you-in-
America feature for Aussies. You search for a product, see a few local prices,
and the US price alongside.

Local vendors would scream at this sale-killing feature, and the PR win would
be something amazing. It might even lower local prices.

------
rmc
This is a bug with the copyright system. The software is copyrighted and only
Adobe can sell it. So they can sell what they want.

One copyright reform I'd make, would be removing copyright protection from
works like this where are sold as massively different rates between markets.
You'd need to look at average wage in the country and compare (rather than a
simple metric of 'can you fly to $OTHERCOUNTRY and buy it for less overall?').
If this was the law, then in this case, the software would not be copyrighted
in Australia and people could bootleg it legally. Adobe would only get
copyright protection if they offered it for sale at a fair price.

Another advantage of this approach is that TVs/Films/out of print books are
only copyrighted and 'locked up', when they are actually for sale. A film
hasn't been released in UK but is in USA? No copyright protected in UK! Force
them to release at same time. (NB: an online shop that ships anywhere counts
as "for sale in that country")

But instead, there is global copyright without any restrictions.

~~~
petercooper
_One copyright reform I'd make, would be removing copyright protection from
works like this where are sold as massively different rates between markets.
You'd need to look at average wage in the country and compare_

Just thought I'd try and run such numbers.

The median Australian household income in 2007-2008 was US $69,085. [1] The
median US household income in the Northeast in 2010 was $53,283. [2] So a 31%
difference versus the 66% difference in the software's price.

However, the Australian price probably includes GST of 10% which when deducted
brings the difference to 51% vs 31%.

So yeah, there's a correction waiting to happen there unless other duties or
taxes are causing the problem.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income_in_Aust...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Median_income)

~~~
Tsagadai
GST is not relevant. The UK has a 20% VAT tax[1] on many things that are
substantially cheaper in the UK than in Australia. Legal software is cheaper
in Thailand than Australia (where the market for legal software is smaller).
The only reason this is happening is because the companies can, and will.
Making a profit is why they exist.

[1] <https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates>

------
meaty
AFAIK the basic cost of living and salaries are higher so is this really a
problem?

Its the opposite of people moaning that people in _some_ 3rd world countries
earn so little but this isn't usually a problem as every day essentials are
actually much cheaper.

------
jergosh
Same story in the UK [http://www.davidarno.org/2008/09/15/fly-to-new-york-and-
buy-...](http://www.davidarno.org/2008/09/15/fly-to-new-york-and-buy-your-
software-its-cheaper-than-buying-in-britain/) (2008)

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typicalbender
Does a company that will buy software in the US and then ship it to someone in
Australia upon request exist?

------
w1ntermute
Or even cheaper, just use a mail forwarding service to send it from the US to
Australia.

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Mordor
Australia just needs to pass a law requiring a price match for online
products.

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Belhor
What torrents no longer work in AU?

------
mkhalil
TPB -_-

