Lately I have repeatedly fallen victim to amazingly overpriced accessories sold by the major manufacturers, in a strategy that is starting to become truly annoying. I see countless companies that market high-priced, premium items (cameras, laptops, etc.) that are sold without some fundamentally required accessory that 90% of customers will simply have to buy, whereas said accessory is priced at a 2000% margin. Examples include the various connector adapters from Apple (VGA adapter on the iPad, DVI output on the MacBooks, etc.), lens hoods on Canon lenses, etc.

These are all essentially little pieces of plastic that typically cost below $1 to make, and are often sold at between $20-$50. The simple answer is that companies do this because they can, and because it’s just easy money. Their customers, in most cases, have already spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on the main attraction, and will be, almost in all cases, willing to pay an extra $50 for something they simply must have, even if that something is ridiculously overpriced.

The question I am asking is, how can a company gauge the true long-term cost of this model: Customer annoyance. How likely am I to start hating Canon after I find myself paying $200 for four lens hoods that should have been free to begin with? Is it enough to consider dumping Canon for their competitor? Probably not, but who knows, it might be the final straw for people who are considering such a move for other reasons. In Canon’s case, I believe their competitors have a similar policy so for them it’s probably a no-brainer, but in Apple’s case, they are selling overpriced connectors that are actually built-into their competitors laptops!