Discussions

One of those peculiarities of Capitalism... My local pound shop (and probably yours too!) will happily sell me a USB "extension cable" for £1. That's about a metre of wire, with a USB Male socket on one end, and a USB female socket on the other. If I wanted something that's just SLIGHTLY different - a USB "Laplink" cable, with a USB Male socket on BOTH ends, one might reasonable expect the price to be roughly the same: the components are effectively the same, the labour involved is the same... but no. My pound shop doesn't sell such things - but EBuyer and Aria do. And their prices are VERY Much higher; in one case £8.50, in the other £15. BUT!!! It gets crazier than that. If I buy an external drive enclosure from Aria's "Supersavers" department, I can get one for well under a fiver. (They've two models to chose between, both under £5) The puzzle is that both of these enclosures come with a FREE USB Male to USB Male cable as standard. SO I can either buy a cable for £8.50... OR an enclosure for £2.95 - which happens to include a FREE £8.50 cable. I've been telling my customers since DOS ruled the world that "if something seems logical, when it comes to the economics of I.T., then it's probably wrong". But I don't think I've ever seen a more perfect example.