The American Wireless Industry: Overcharging and Misleading Consumers

One of the biggest problems with the American wireless industry is the way it charges its customers. For example, 4G networks are generally faster than 3G networks, but instead of lowering prices to reflect this difference, wireless providers often charge more for 4G plans. This is a classic case of price gouging, where companies take advantage of consumers' lack of understanding about the technology behind their services. By charging more for 4G plans, wireless providers can reap higher profits from customers who are willing to pay more for faster speeds.

Another way in which the American wireless industry overcharges its customers is through text messaging. With the widespread adoption of smartphones, texting has become a ubiquitous feature of modern communication. However, many wireless providers still charge exorbitant rates for text messaging services. This is a prime example of how companies can take advantage of consumers' reliance on these services by charging more than they should. If customers don't have a text messaging plan, they may be in luck, as this service is often one of the most overpriced options available.

The Mac Pro: A Computer for the Elite

Apple's Mac Pro line of computers is widely regarded as one of the most expensive and overhyped consumer electronics products on the market. With its sleek design and impressive specs, the Mac Pro appears to be a computer that can handle even the most demanding tasks with ease. However, when you look closer at the pricing, it becomes clear that this computer is not for everyone. The baseline Mac Pro model, which comes with six gigs of RAM, a regular hard drive, and an outdated 5870 graphics card, costs $2,500. This may seem like a reasonable price point for a high-end computer, but when you compare it to the specs of a hackintosh-built computer that can perform many of these tasks just as well, if not better, at a fraction of the cost ($2,200), it becomes clear that Apple is pricing its Mac Pro computers extremely high.

This phenomenon is not unique to the Mac Pro. Many consumer electronics products are designed to appeal to a specific demographic or niche market, often at the expense of affordability and practicality. The result is that consumers are forced to pay an arm and a leg for a product that may not even offer significant improvements over more affordable alternatives.

Beats by Dre: Overpriced Audio Products

Finally, there's no denying it: Beats by Dre products are outrageously expensive. From the $400 retail price of the Beats Pro headphones to the $500 "Pro" edition, which features only a coat of black paint over the top of an already pricey product, Beats by Dre is often one of the most overpriced consumer electronics brands on the market. And it's not just the headphones – other Beats products, such as the Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber lines, are also extremely expensive.

The problem with these products is that they often don't sound significantly better than more affordable alternatives. For example, the $80 HM 50s headphones offer many of the same features and sound quality as the Beats Pro, but at a fraction of the cost. This raises questions about whether the added price point of the Beats by Dre brand is actually justified, or if it's simply a result of clever marketing and branding.

Honorable Mentions: Overpriced Products Worth Mentioning

While the Beats by Dre headphones are undoubtedly one of the most overpriced products on the market, there are several other consumer electronics products that deserve honorable mention for their outrageous pricing. For example, some companies are charging upwards of $200 for PDF versions of textbooks, which can be easily downloaded from online retailers at a fraction of the cost.

Another notable example is the Sony Vaio P, a tiny netbook computer that was released years ago but still costs $900 today. And then there's the Apple Lisa, one of the first personal computers on the market, which originally retailed for a staggering $10,000.

And finally, no list would be complete without mentioning the paper shredder that costs an astonishing $130,000. While it's unclear what exactly this product is capable of (and whether or not it's actually worth the price), it's hard to argue with its sheer audacity in terms of pricing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these products represent just a few examples of how the consumer electronics industry can often take advantage of consumers' desire for new and innovative technology. Whether it's overcharging for 4G plans, charging exorbitant rates for text messaging services, or pricing its Mac Pro computers at an arm and a leg, Apple is no exception. And as for Beats by Dre products – well, they're just plain ridiculous. By understanding these business tactics, consumers can make informed decisions about the products they buy and avoid getting taken advantage of.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up guys I'm Kay PhD here so earlier today I was sorting some random items on Amazon for a most expensive to least expensive just random stuff and I came across this paper shredder which costs a hundred and thirty thousand dollars so that was the inspiration for today's video which we're going to talk about the top five most overpriced deals in all of tech so there are some things that are actually justifiably expensive like for example the twenty thousand dollar 4k TVs that we saw at CES they look beautiful they had insanely high resolutions but they cost out-of-this-world prices but they are actually really valuable they're bleeding edge technology and actually deserve to be twenty thousand dollars at least for right now but that price will come down I can also see things like you know studio monitors being a couple thousand dollars things like that I can understand but then there are things that the price just doesn't match the value the bang for buck ratio is totally out of whack and that's what this countdown is about so these things are just straight-up overpriced number five is AudioQuest HDMI cables I'd do you think even know what HDMI cables are it's a digital signal going through a wire that is not prone to interference at any sort of short distance but yet these HDMI cables are valued and so highly priced because they have the best you know pure silver lining and they have this awesome shielding and they're just transferring the same exact signal that a three dollar 50 cent cable from monoprice provides why did these cost over a thousand dollars for his six-foot HDMI cable that is just a little bit ridiculous I just for the record audio Quest is not the only one who has done this there are other companies that have tried the thousand dollar HDMI cable to most notably monster cable they did one as well which is insane and yet somehow every single one of these always ends up being in Best Buy and they always have the most hilarious reviews on Amazon they made my pictures look better than my TV faster it's just hilarious but yeah so that cable is just ridiculously overpriced number four printer ink I'm sure we can all relate to this one now just for the record I just want to say that there are printers out there that won't let me print black and white documents because I ran out of magenta ink like that's actually a thing that there are there are printers out there that won't let me write and print a text document in all black and white because my yellow or magenta ink cartridges out of ink I think that says a lot about the printer industry print rain takes the number four spot because there are actually cases where it's more cost-effective to buy several new printers than it is to refill the same printer with more ink over and over again which is weird but it's true it's an actual thing and these new printers come with ink in them so I don't know why the ink cost so much I know that the refills you know companies like Epson and HP they try to hype it up and try to justify the cost of these printer ink cartridges by saying you know there's high technology going into them and they're really efficient and they're really green but in the end if the same amount of material in to ketchup packets costs $45 its overpriced number three is cellphone plans let's do a little math here eighteen t charges 20 cents per text message and a single text message is limited to 160 characters tops which tops out at 160 bytes in size so one gigabyte of bandwidth can handle about six point two five million text messages so multiply those six point two five million by twenty cents per text and you'll find that cell phone companies are charging one point two five million dollars per gigabyte of data for text messaging that's ridiculous and there are some other ridiculous things about cell phone companies in the way they charge as well for example in the United States companies like Verizon and AT&T and Sprint and all these guys they charge you for going over your data caps so obviously 3G and 4G data the more data you use the more they charge you even though it costs less to implement 4G than it does 3G they charge you more for it because it happens to be faster there's a whole bunch of things that are screw up about the American Wireless industry but text messaging is one of the biggest ones because they can really get you there so if you don't have a text messaging plan you're probably in luck because that's really overpriced thing number two is the Mac Pro no mercy Apple you saw this coming you knew this was going to happen but the Mac Pro is easily the most overpriced computer that you can buy from retail right now and the fact that you can still buy it from retail is kind of sad the Mac Pro okay I bought a hackintosh built a hackintosh for less than 2,200 dollars and it had as you guys saw from the series that I put it together with 32 gigs of ram 3 SSDs and 6 core processor inside it had a ridiculous amount of great specs at a GTX 670 2 gigabyte edition graphics card anime using computer for $2,200 the baseline Mac Pro which has six siga bytes of RAM a regular hard drive a three-year-old 5870 graphics card and several other outdated parts comes in at $2,500 as a matter of fact if you spec out a Mac Pro on Apple's website to the same specs as the hackintosh that I built for $2,200 you will end up giving Apple somewhere in the ballpark of $6,000 which pretty much earns the number 2 spot in this town town the Mac Pro is pretty overpriced and last but certainly not least deep and dear in my heart number one most overpriced in tech is the beats Pro headphones now these headphones are part of a family of overpriced beats by dre products starting all the way at the bottom with the beats solo HDS all the way up to the beats studios and the beatbox beatbox things like a like a boombox sort of an iPod dock all of these things are very premium ly priced even though they don't sound that great the beats pros retail at $400 right now you can get these on Amazon for $400 and don't forget there's a beats by dre pro detox Edition which is a coat of black paint over the top for an extra hundred dollars um yeah so now that's $500 and don't forget there's a lil wayne' versions the you get where I'm going with this these are part of a long string of celebrity endorsed product specifically audio products like the Lady gaga beats and the Justin Bieber beats they all don't sound all that great and if you can get better sounding headphones like the 80 HM 50s for example for half the price you've earned your spot in to the most overpriced tech and that's why the beats pros come in at number one they're made of metal but they sound like they're only made of metal so there you go guys it seems like putting the word pro in the name is a bit of a curse if you're going to price it high also I have the links to pretty much all the things I just talked about in the description right below the like button on this video pointing out my crotch right now but if you want to check out the things or if you feel like blowing a few million dollars today you can do that because I put the links down below shout outs honorable mentions go to my macroeconomics teacher who has a pdf version of his textbook for $200 what the hell the Sony Vaio P actually saw someone a couple of years ago using one of these I didn't know how much it cost it looked kind of tiny I thought it was a bit of a netbook it cost $900 the original Apple Lisa which was I guess a of a pioneer in its time the same way 4k TVs are but it was a computer that didn't perform very well and it cost ten thousand dollars and this watch because you know there are people out there who will buy that anyway of course the $130,000 paper shredder will also be in the link in the description below and if you think about it all these things are just hilarious I don't I don't understand how people actually buy these and usually the reviews of them are hilarious - so read the reviews on Amazon if you want a good laugh and if you want to blow a few million dollars buy them anyway thank you for watching this is just a quick top 5 video if you have another suggestion for a top 5 video feel free to leave it in the comment section below if you want to see more videos like this feel free to subscribe this has just been a quick fun video thank you for watching and I'll talk to you guys very soon the next one pace youhey what's up guys I'm Kay PhD here so earlier today I was sorting some random items on Amazon for a most expensive to least expensive just random stuff and I came across this paper shredder which costs a hundred and thirty thousand dollars so that was the inspiration for today's video which we're going to talk about the top five most overpriced deals in all of tech so there are some things that are actually justifiably expensive like for example the twenty thousand dollar 4k TVs that we saw at CES they look beautiful they had insanely high resolutions but they cost out-of-this-world prices but they are actually really valuable they're bleeding edge technology and actually deserve to be twenty thousand dollars at least for right now but that price will come down I can also see things like you know studio monitors being a couple thousand dollars things like that I can understand but then there are things that the price just doesn't match the value the bang for buck ratio is totally out of whack and that's what this countdown is about so these things are just straight-up overpriced number five is AudioQuest HDMI cables I'd do you think even know what HDMI cables are it's a digital signal going through a wire that is not prone to interference at any sort of short distance but yet these HDMI cables are valued and so highly priced because they have the best you know pure silver lining and they have this awesome shielding and they're just transferring the same exact signal that a three dollar 50 cent cable from monoprice provides why did these cost over a thousand dollars for his six-foot HDMI cable that is just a little bit ridiculous I just for the record audio Quest is not the only one who has done this there are other companies that have tried the thousand dollar HDMI cable to most notably monster cable they did one as well which is insane and yet somehow every single one of these always ends up being in Best Buy and they always have the most hilarious reviews on Amazon they made my pictures look better than my TV faster it's just hilarious but yeah so that cable is just ridiculously overpriced number four printer ink I'm sure we can all relate to this one now just for the record I just want to say that there are printers out there that won't let me print black and white documents because I ran out of magenta ink like that's actually a thing that there are there are printers out there that won't let me write and print a text document in all black and white because my yellow or magenta ink cartridges out of ink I think that says a lot about the printer industry print rain takes the number four spot because there are actually cases where it's more cost-effective to buy several new printers than it is to refill the same printer with more ink over and over again which is weird but it's true it's an actual thing and these new printers come with ink in them so I don't know why the ink cost so much I know that the refills you know companies like Epson and HP they try to hype it up and try to justify the cost of these printer ink cartridges by saying you know there's high technology going into them and they're really efficient and they're really green but in the end if the same amount of material in to ketchup packets costs $45 its overpriced number three is cellphone plans let's do a little math here eighteen t charges 20 cents per text message and a single text message is limited to 160 characters tops which tops out at 160 bytes in size so one gigabyte of bandwidth can handle about six point two five million text messages so multiply those six point two five million by twenty cents per text and you'll find that cell phone companies are charging one point two five million dollars per gigabyte of data for text messaging that's ridiculous and there are some other ridiculous things about cell phone companies in the way they charge as well for example in the United States companies like Verizon and AT&T and Sprint and all these guys they charge you for going over your data caps so obviously 3G and 4G data the more data you use the more they charge you even though it costs less to implement 4G than it does 3G they charge you more for it because it happens to be faster there's a whole bunch of things that are screw up about the American Wireless industry but text messaging is one of the biggest ones because they can really get you there so if you don't have a text messaging plan you're probably in luck because that's really overpriced thing number two is the Mac Pro no mercy Apple you saw this coming you knew this was going to happen but the Mac Pro is easily the most overpriced computer that you can buy from retail right now and the fact that you can still buy it from retail is kind of sad the Mac Pro okay I bought a hackintosh built a hackintosh for less than 2,200 dollars and it had as you guys saw from the series that I put it together with 32 gigs of ram 3 SSDs and 6 core processor inside it had a ridiculous amount of great specs at a GTX 670 2 gigabyte edition graphics card anime using computer for $2,200 the baseline Mac Pro which has six siga bytes of RAM a regular hard drive a three-year-old 5870 graphics card and several other outdated parts comes in at $2,500 as a matter of fact if you spec out a Mac Pro on Apple's website to the same specs as the hackintosh that I built for $2,200 you will end up giving Apple somewhere in the ballpark of $6,000 which pretty much earns the number 2 spot in this town town the Mac Pro is pretty overpriced and last but certainly not least deep and dear in my heart number one most overpriced in tech is the beats Pro headphones now these headphones are part of a family of overpriced beats by dre products starting all the way at the bottom with the beats solo HDS all the way up to the beats studios and the beatbox beatbox things like a like a boombox sort of an iPod dock all of these things are very premium ly priced even though they don't sound that great the beats pros retail at $400 right now you can get these on Amazon for $400 and don't forget there's a beats by dre pro detox Edition which is a coat of black paint over the top for an extra hundred dollars um yeah so now that's $500 and don't forget there's a lil wayne' versions the you get where I'm going with this these are part of a long string of celebrity endorsed product specifically audio products like the Lady gaga beats and the Justin Bieber beats they all don't sound all that great and if you can get better sounding headphones like the 80 HM 50s for example for half the price you've earned your spot in to the most overpriced tech and that's why the beats pros come in at number one they're made of metal but they sound like they're only made of metal so there you go guys it seems like putting the word pro in the name is a bit of a curse if you're going to price it high also I have the links to pretty much all the things I just talked about in the description right below the like button on this video pointing out my crotch right now but if you want to check out the things or if you feel like blowing a few million dollars today you can do that because I put the links down below shout outs honorable mentions go to my macroeconomics teacher who has a pdf version of his textbook for $200 what the hell the Sony Vaio P actually saw someone a couple of years ago using one of these I didn't know how much it cost it looked kind of tiny I thought it was a bit of a netbook it cost $900 the original Apple Lisa which was I guess a of a pioneer in its time the same way 4k TVs are but it was a computer that didn't perform very well and it cost ten thousand dollars and this watch because you know there are people out there who will buy that anyway of course the $130,000 paper shredder will also be in the link in the description below and if you think about it all these things are just hilarious I don't I don't understand how people actually buy these and usually the reviews of them are hilarious - so read the reviews on Amazon if you want a good laugh and if you want to blow a few million dollars buy them anyway thank you for watching this is just a quick top 5 video if you have another suggestion for a top 5 video feel free to leave it in the comment section below if you want to see more videos like this feel free to subscribe this has just been a quick fun video thank you for watching and I'll talk to you guys very soon the next one pace you\n"