The Internet is a great money saver.  It’s a great place to find deals.  It’s an engine of the economy.  However, it also hurts companies that are charging too much for their goods if people are wise enough to look for deals.

One of the deals that you can find online is on eyeglasses.  All you need to do is to get your prescription and your Pupillary Distance (PD) and you can make any deal you want to get you the best price.  So what are optometrists doing?  They’re refusing to give you the information, or planning ways to charge you more or give you the wrong value just to keep their business.

I can understand self preservation.  They are making quite a margin on selling glasses frames, and if you can go online and get those same frames for much cheaper, then they aren’t making much money.

As a software developer who sees his trade going overseas at times, I get it.

However, that doesn’t mean that these optometrists should be withholding that information.  If they want to charge a fee to give it to you, fine: be upfront about it.

But the information should be relayed correctly and if they really want the business they should find some way to provide better service of differentiate themselves in other ways.  Like packaging, for instance.

And they should also remember that if they are going to be deceitful, it’s pretty easy to find another optometrist that will provide the information that they request!