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Comment by francisofascii | Hacker News Reader

Why would a quality pair of glasses have to cost $400? You can get a quality SLR camera for that, which would seem to have way more sophistication that a pair of glasses. What am I missing?

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Insurance companies and Luxottica

Chances are that if you're buying glasses you're probably getting a brand that's directly owned by Luxottica (LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Apex by Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Target Optical, Eyemed vision care plan, Glasses.com, Ray-Ban, Persol, Oakley, etc). They also manufacture for an impressive string of luxury brands (Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Miu Miu, DKNY, and Tory Burch). [0]. It's an impressive roll-up of a number of retailers and brands by a not widely known Italian company.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

Its a monopoly that abuses its power to extract money from hapless consumers, most of whom just want a pair of decent eyeglasses to function. I've made a conscious decision to avoid purchasing from them as much as I can, but do continue to buy from Ray-Ban. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDdq2rIqAlM

33% of the US market is a monopoly?

> The company says that the market is highly competitive, and their frames account for ~10% of sales worldwide and ~20% in the United States.[42][41] Euromonitor International estimates that Luxottica's market share is 14% worldwide, and the second-largest company in the industry, Essilor, has a 13% market share. The third-largest player is Johnson & Johnson, with a 3.9% market share. As of October 2018, Luxottica and Essilor have merged into a single company, EssilorLuxottica, representing almost a billion pairs of lenses and frames sold annually.

If you check price segments, the monopoly hypothesis gains support again. They own all the the higher end, including all the fashion / lifestyle brands.

By that logic Apple has a monopoly in smartphones.

Incorrect. Samsung etc. have phones that compete in the luxury smartphone segment with Apple. Luxottica has no such alternative (as of now, WP seems nice but it remains to be seen if they will focus on this market segment in the future).

There certainly are high-end, well-made, good-looking, and bloody expensive frames out there (i.e. everything WP isn't) that aren't from one of Luxottica's brands. Off-hand I could think of at least Gold & Wood, ic! berlin, and Mykita.

WP's story seems to be sprinkling some SV magic dust over decidedly pedestrian frames, not going after the high-end.

Are vision insurance benefits really widespread enough to make a big impact? I have what I believe to be one of the big ones through my employer and a small number of local places even took it.

I suspect it's much more about being a fashion business which it's hard to opt out of. Non-prescription sunglasses can also be very expensive at (I assume) eye-watering margins. (Owned in many cases by the same brand TBF.)

Honestly they should be sub $5 with Chinese manufacturing. And I'm not talking qty 100000 rather $5 at retail.

It's monopolies that force the price so high.

The price depends on your prescription. If your site is really poor, you may need high index lenses that are thinner. These lenses are about $35 more than the “free” lenses included in the starting $95-$125 price at Warby Parker. $300-400 is not out of the ordinary for those with poor vision, and that’s sometimes the price _with_ insurance.

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