The variable price of life (or how some people pay for your stuff)

[Dave Gray]

This got me thinking recently, because video games have these new things called "loot crates".  It's where you buy a game for X amount of dollars, but then you can buy (for real money) stuff in-game to make your character look different or whatever.  (There is a whole separate controversy to this, but whatever.)  Even back before this, a game would cost $50.  But you could get some special bullshit edition for $75.  Or an ultra-edition for $100 that had some art book or whatever.

But not me.  I just bought the game and let these nerds line up for some stupid metal case or whatever.  More power to them.

Ultimately, the cost of game production went up but the cost of games really didn't, because it was subsidized by others paying extra that were willing to do it.

The same thing is true with a lot of services.  I have a cable bundle that costs $40.00.  It includes Internet and basic cable and a premium channel.  It lasts a year.   After that year, it balloons up to $90 or something like that.  And you can bet your ass that I'm going to call and get my $40 rate back.  But I imagine that there are tons of people (the majority, maybe), that just pay what the rate it and are essentially subsidizing me getting that service for so cheap.

I don't even know the purpose of this thread other than I think that's an interesting scenario.