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Care and progress for the disabled has always been an open door for corporations to test new technology on a truly captivated audience. The absurdly high costs and exclusivity is often how the public justifies to themselves that these companies couldn't possibly have any malintent because the stakes are too high. They have no incentive to reduce costs, improve repairability, or even genuinely care about the patients or symptoms that they're treating; that's the inventor's problem.
Basic models: Starting around $1,200 to $2,000 for travel chairs.
Mid-range options: Typically between $2,500 and $5,000.
High-end models: Can exceed $10,000 for advanced features and customization.
Customized models: Prices can go up to $5,000+ for specialized needs.
i don't know anyone who needs a power chair who doesn't need a customized one. try again.
wdym
What's really fun is we have two ruling parties, both of whom don't give a damn about right to repair, tech monopolies, or universal health care.
Generic person:
Well boo hoo, what did you do to get that / should've cared more / been more careful.
Later:
Boohoo, I didn't think it would affect me! Now it's serious!
Generic Republican. Leftists have empathy.
To me this mostly isn't a universal healthcare issue, it's a right to repair issue. Everyone that reads this should support both concepts.
It's also a medical devices being expensive in general issue. If you build something and you want it to get cleared for medical use you need to test the shit out of it and get several kinds of certification. And you need to do it all over everytime you make any change whatsoever. This can easily take two years for every change, even if you just change something trivial.
All of this is to prevent another Therac-25. For the uninitiated: That was a radiotherapy device that, due to design flaws on several levels, could inadvertantly be turned into a literal death ray. Several patients died because of this. In the aftermath, the regulations for medical decides were tightened considerably.
That's a major part of why medical devices are so insanely expensive. Much of what you're paying for is a titanic amount of certification work.
Unfortunately, this also makes it harder to implement a right to repair for these. Few people want to figure out who is responsible when e.g. a CPAP device that someone repaired themselves fails. The current approach is to make it damn near impossible for the manufacturers to screw up but that's a lot harder when the device can ever be in a configuration that hasn't been extensively tested and certified.
The fact it makes everything expensive and proprietary is just an unfortunate side effect.
I think any company that is sunsetting a product with existing customers still using it should offer full refunds or a way to operate it without the company.
Cloud services have no incentive to continue operating unless they charge 'rent' as servers and maintenance is not free. However, if they choose to use proprietary ways to protect their IP, they should also have an obligation. If they choose to not have that obligation, they lose the IP and open source it.
Subscriptions for necessities. Subscriptions to live.
Fucking rent
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Drink verification can.
the cheapest realistic one for someone who needs an electric wheelchair is 4000, not 200.
and that has neither upper back nor neck support. it does not recline. you will get sores from it.
If you buy something for that price, I hope you have somebody who can come and get you when it fucks up and leaves you in the middle of nowhere.
Considering how dystopian this world is I expected them to be more expensive, still expensive tho
I expected them to be more than that.
Keep in mind those are probably drop-ship Amazon quality. I'd expect 5x for something actually good that will last.
Yes, it is closer to $17k USD for an actual custom chair that will meet individual needs (which can't be bought on amazon) instead of a one size fits most kind of thing.
The customization is actually incredibly important for quality of life reasons, because it isn't just physical measurements, but also things like proper weight distribution tunes to how the person sits in and uses the chair. Sure, you can get a chair for $600, but there is a non zero chance that the throttle will be touchy and the balance will be off, sending you backwards onto the floor every time you move.
I have a spare '86 VW engine, a welder, and some spare bike wheels. I will be a dangerous old person.