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Adobe To Australians: Fly To US For Cheaper Software
angry tapir writes "It's been a long-running joke that it's cheaper for Australians to get a plane ticket to the U.S. if they want to buy Adobe's Creative Suite instead of paying local prices. But appearing before a parliamentary inquiry into the disparity between IT prices in Australia and elsewhere, Adobe's local chief appeared to suggest just that."
Other companies gave their responses to the inquiry as well. Microsoft said they'll simply charge what the market will bear. Apple tossed out a host of reasons for the price difference; its retail partners, digital content owners, exchange rates, taxes, import duties, and an apparent inability to alter the price set by its U.S. parent company.
I don't know if this applies to software, but I know that music and movies have been seriously hindered by archaic regional licensing agreements going back to the days when physical media was the only means of distribution. It's why a certain DVD may be available in a certain region at price x, while completely unavailable or at a different price in region y (with a different distributor or even with a completely different edition of the movie/song). This old system has become a HUGE annoyance in the modern streaming era, particularly if you're trying to watch Netflix outside the U.S. (since those movie licensing agreements are still such a goddamned mess, even in an era when streaming crosses every old national and regional border). It's also why I have to import my blu-ray of "More American Graffiti" from the UK instead of being able to buy it here in the U.S.
This may also explain why these weird prices apply specifically to the standard physical boxed sets of Adobe products, and not the newer cloud versions or student editions (as per the article). It may also explain why Adobe is so reticent to talk about it. If they have some long-standing regional licensing/distribution agreement in Australia, they may be reluctant to bad-mouth their local licensees/distributors (who have jacked up the retail prices for whatever reasons).
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
the company is supposed to pay that, not the customers
along with longer warranties mandated by law and everything else
And you think the company wouldn't pass that cost along to the customers?
If this was so easy, couldn't you call a 'friend' in the U.S. and make them mail you a copy?
There has got to be more to this than that.
It's GST not VAT, and it doesn't come close to explaining the gouging these companies have been getting away with.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
It's just so darn expensive to rewrite all the software upside down for Australia and the rest of the southern hemisphere. That's the entirety of the additional cost!
If my knowledge of Australia is any indication, they're not socialist. They're either a vast wasteland where people in dune buggies fight over gasoline, or the place where young Einstein learned to party. One of those. Either way, I know they all carry VERY large knives.
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
If you say so...
In the end we just pirate the software as a result anyway (including companies and even some state government), ends up cheaper - and the 'evil companies' end up getting nothing at all, instead of roughly what they'd get in other countries that do get sales.
What do you expect? This happens because of:
Taxes, regulation, customs/tariffs, and a currency inflated by commodity boom currency inflows (the currency risk premium is on the order of that of bitcoins by now).
Longer warranties, import taxes and sales taxes are just costs of doing business. And costs of doing business are passed along to the customer. Did you really expect a commercial company to let higher costs eat into their profit margin? If taxes are being raised, prices go up. If legislation is passed that makes it more expensive for companies to operate, prices go up.
If my knowledge of Australia is any indication, they're not socialist. They're either a vast wasteland where people in dune buggies fight over gasoline, or the place where young Einstein learned to party. One of those. Either way, I know they all carry VERY large knives.
You must be Adobe's overseas marketing director.
Our mascot is a Koala.
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
I know there are plenty of people who really do need Adobe software for various reasons. However, I know there are also lots of people who could get by with GIMP instead of Photoshop and Inkscsape instead of Illustrator (I am one of those later people). I think there is a missed opportunity here for the open source community to gain some traction down under...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Where I live prices are sky high. I grumble at it a bit and I do buy from abroad. However, it is to me a sign that the economy I live in can bear the price. As a matter of fact, beginning of may I will take a trip to England to buy tyres for my car. No kidding!
You'd almost say that it is normal, sound business practice to get the most out of your products. For my car tyres it actually is sound and clean business practice as anyone could import those tyres and offer them to me at a lower price. But nobody really bothers because the market for this type of tyre is small.
If MS, Adobe and Apple would "allow" parallel imports (which I think they won't be to keen on) then nothing would be wrong here. I suspect however that should you open a shop in the US to resell the software products to Australia, that you'd have a pretty hard time. Volume rebates and supply would most likely turn out to be disappointing.
The only option is to push globalisation further and to put penalties on uncompetitive behaviour. That would also have the side effect that, say, 3rd world countries would have easier entrance to our food market.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
"Microsoft said they'll simply charge what the market will bear."
I see no socialism here, but capitalism at work.
Adobe is just being greedy.. that's all.
Except of course GST is 10% which is actually less than sales tax in some US states, import taxes on software are, to the best of my knowledge, virtually non existent, and for all the consumer protection laws here, our software warranties are absolutely identical to those of the US. In some instances(Steam for instance) the company doesn't even have a physical presence here.
Even if all those things actually added dramatically to the cost, some of these products are in excess of double the US prices while our dollar is actually worth more. The honest truth is that every single companies real answer is the same as Microsoft's, the Australian economy is doing quite well and a long history of significantly lower exchange rates has made Australians accustomed to substantially higher prices. Customers are willing and able to pay a higher price and so companies charge them a higher price.
Don't buy our shit. Please don't! Ever again!
Sadly people don't listen even if the corp screams at the top of their lungs like EA does with SimCity.
I still don't understand why a game that costs $50 in the US should cost 50 euros in Europe.
UK customer don't seem to be affected by these strange currency conversions.
This old system has become a HUGE annoyance in the modern streaming era, particularly if you're trying to watch Netflix outside the U.S. (since those movie licensing agreements are still such a goddamned mess, even in an era when streaming crosses every old national and regional border).
That's one of the things I like with Free/Libre OpenSource Software:
If I want to download a copy from internet, I can do it from everywhere. I can pretty much get my favourite Linux distro without any licensing / regional distributor / retail chains madness.
Only very few restriction apply.
- Some digital copyright law, might require acquire DRM-decoding libraries from elsewhere (decss not available in the US or some EU countries).
- Some patent law, might require acquiring codecs from elsewhere (no mp3 nor h264 are available wherever software patent apply).
- Some import/export law might require acquiring encryption from elsewhere (do still the USA consider large bits key encryption as "munition" and ban its export ?)
And any way this restrictions boil down to "get these pieces from places where it is not illegal for them to be provided to you"
(most of the time: download them from servers outside of the USA).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
They can charge what they want to with pretty much no competition. Why not fire up a kickstarter campaign to add whatever features are missing to their open source competition? Maybe it'd be cheaper to hire some programmers to do that, as well. Especially since that could be a project funded and worked on globally.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At Least Microsoft was honest.
They are all simply charging what the market will bear. Apparently Australians want Creative Suite so badly that they will pay a fortune for it So, why shouldn't Adobe charge more?
To use the old car analogy, it's no different than Toyota's "Availability charge". An extra $1,000 or $2,000 just because that model is popular and selling well.
The only real question is; will the Australian parliament attempt outlaw business profits or the business profits of foreign companies. If they do, then I would expect these companies to stop doing business in Oz and for Australians to HAVE to fly out of the country to buy their software.
In case of Adobe and Microsoft it certainly does not. And they both admitted as much.
With regards of Apple it isn't as simple. Their hardware isn't much more expensive as in the US and the difference can be explain fairly easy by taxes and increased costs of doing business.
The iTunes store is a while different matter. Apple has to license the content from local copyright holders and prices are set by those local companies.
For example take a song created by an American artists. The American record company holds all rights to the song, but exclusively sub-licenses it to a local Australian company for distribution in their local market. If Apple wants to sell that song, it has to deal with the American record company for distribution in the U.S. and deal with the Australian company if they want to sell it in Australia. And the Australian company wants more money from Apple which leads to higher prices.
Most likely the Australian company is owned by the American record company, so guess where all the profits go to...
In my experience Adobe software is more expensive outside the United States in general. It's understandable in Europe where they've got 20% VAT, in addition to a ton of other tariffs. But in Australia their VAT is 10%, considered one of the lowest in the world; I suppose, except for the US which has none. There may be import duties that are not being mentioned here, but it still wouldn't explain why the software is $1000 more expensive than in the US.
However, I've noticed the trend elsewhere, including where I worked in Taiwan. Where Adobe software was considerably more expensive. It was ironic considering how rampant piracy was there. In our case we went through grey market channels, where someone purchased a bunch of copies in the US and resold them there. That or we'd get someone in the States to buy us a copy. Either way, we definitely weren't rushing out to buy the latest versions. So if anything, Adobe was discouraging sales.
There was a lot of weirdness. Some software was cheaper than in the US. But then electronics were barely on par, and in some cases even Taiwanese-made laptops, for example, were actually cheaper than you'd find in the US. I do know that companies were levied various taxes and tariffs so that may have accounted for some of it.
As far as I know, Australia's median income isn't higher than the US. So it seems that for whatever reason Adobe is gouging them. That said, good luck finding a plane ticket for anywhere near $1000.
Actually yes. They will charge the amount that will bring the most income, that's based on supply and demand not on taxes.
FTFA: "Adobe’s US software can be used in Australia but not covered by warranty, he said."
Really? Since when do they have a real warranty on software anyhow?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A company gave an honest answer? :D"
I was expecting all of these companies to give bullshit reasons, and Microsoft just straight up said "Oh, lol, cause we can
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Even with the GST and import taxes, if you're working for an Australian business who needs 2 (or more) copies of Adobe CS6, you're still well ahead by flying over to the US and buying them and paying the GST and import tax. At $3879 for the CS6 master collection, your $1600 flight and $1200 software purchase, plus say $300 salary and $100 hotel room for one night still comes out ahead - and for multiple copies, you're laughing.
... wait, what?
I never said the difference in price is due to taxes and other costs of doing business. Just that if costs increase, so do prices. So if costs of doing business in Australia are higher, you would expect to see higher prices. And this is perfectly acceptable. However if companies think they can jack up prices simply because people will pay anyway that is another question.
Importing UK Blu-rays into USA? Did you also import a player for them? Otherwise, I don't see how you're not in violation of federal law (i.e. the DMCA) whenever you're watching one of them (Blu-ray region codes).
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Make your own.
Or pirate.
Keep the huge price jacks going! And jack them up by at least the same percentage next year. Also make sure your BSA keeps up their work.
While normally I am not opposed to pirating, please people do not pirate their software!! Just stick with good old FOSS.
Australians to Adobe: bugger off.
Australia Adobe store - Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - US$ 4,530.00
Brazil Adobe store - Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - US$ 5,055.00
Brazil, where a car made here is sold for R$ 56.210, and the same car, but with more optionals, is exported to Mexico (over 7000 Km away) and is sold there for R$ 25.800. Take that Australia!
So then these companies (Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) freak out when so much of their software is pirated. I lived in Spain a number of years and the pirated software is everywhere including in government. They can't afford to buy it so they steal it. Not to mention the open software movement. These companies are the reason it does so well in these poorer countries.
aferarge
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand. Amen!
This makes me feel like going back to pirating Microsoft software, especially knowing that for every dollar I give them they pay $0 in tax. If they could raise their profits by eating babies, they'd do it, to the mantra of "that's business".
This. Why should a company accept lower margins in a country that is willing to bear it.
what about the inport taxes? and the VAT tax?
On digital media,
Import taxes = 0%
GST (Goods and Services Tax, our version of the VAT) 10%.
So if a software package costs US$1200 in the States, it should cost about $1320 in Oz. I'll allow up to $1500 to account for a smaller market and physical isolation.
I dont know how Adobe figures it can charge $1600 more for CS6 in Oz than it does in the US.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Even with the GST and import taxes, if you're working for an Australian business who needs 2 (or more) copies of Adobe CS6, you're still well ahead by flying over to the US and buying them and paying the GST and import tax. At $3879 for the CS6 master collection, your $1600 flight and $1200 software purchase, plus say $300 salary and $100 hotel room for one night still comes out ahead - and for multiple copies, you're laughing.
Actually salary would be more like $1200. 2 x 16 hour flights (in Oz, every hour flying is counted as an hour working) plus the time there and back. Also you'll need to get them to spend at least one night in LA (closest city to Oz, although you can also fly to SF, Dallas and Fort Worth for the same amount of money and time). The trip would take the better part of a week, would you work 4 days for only $300? It's less than min wage here in Oz (30 hours = $10 an hour, min wage is $15 is p/h).
It would be easier to purchase a boxed copy from the myriad of stores who ship to Oz and ask them to ship to Oz. Customs takes the mandatory 10% GST (Goods and Services Tax, basically sales tax) and you get your software.
If the govt really cared (and this wasn't just some political sideshow) they'd allow shops to import direct from overseas importers... But it's the govt so I don't hold out much hope for that.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Robson said the cloud-delivered software is cheaper because it doesn’t have to go through traditional distribution and retail channels. He added that Adobe would prefer selling products over the cloud.
cloud deliverrd software is cheaper because we will make more money over time with a subscription model that reaches into your pocket for a seemingly small amount, than a large upfront fee that causes everyone to pirate.
Silence is a state of mime.
So, on your planet where market forces of supply and demand don't work, does gravity make things fall upward or what exactly do we have going on here?
" If legislation is passed that makes it more expensive for companies to operate, prices go up."
If prices go up and users still pay equally, then any economist will tell you either...
- prices were too low before and/or
- the companies have excessive market power
in either case, the items we're talking about here are expensive enough that it isnt the case of adobe artifically cheapening their price to keep out competitors. does adobe have excessive market power? you tell me: GiMP and other such tools are avialable for free. sounds to me like that they made a good product people want, despite there being cheap alternatives.
Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? Have you ever been to Australia?
It is not "consumer friendly" at all. Granted it is not as hard core as the "stab your neighbor in the face and take his money" capitalism in the US, but it is close. Corporations have massive power over consumers in Australia. Most Australians would attribute this to American corporate and government manipulation. Though I say, BS. It is ones own job to keep his house in order.
Seriously. There are organized trips now to the US. Not just for TVs and games and stuff like that.
People will fly to US and buy their entire kitchen set. (Most can work both 110v and 220v now).
Even after paying the shipping container and the VAT, it is still significantly cheaper than buying in Australia.
If shit is expensive, leave it linger. Who gives a flying cockadoodledoo what it costs somewhere else... Adobe is way overrated and a greedy bastard famous for shafting people, none this is news...
Fortunately it's not the only player around.
This article has a nice graphic: http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/21/apple-blames-high-australian-markups-for-digital-content-on-media-rights-holders/
"Earlier today, MacStories noted that markups in Australia average as much as 61.4% for music, 33.5% for movies and 25.9% for TV shows when a subset of content offerings is compared to prices in the United States once Australia's Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been accounted for. Markups for Apple's hardware products are more reasonable, with Mac, iPad and iPod prices in Australia generally falling within 10% of U.S. prices. The iPhone line, however, can go as high as a 16% markup for the iPhone 5 and 4S, while the iPhone 4 is actually slightly cheaper in Australia than it is in the United States."
Even more detail at http://www.macstories.net/stories/quantifying-the-australian-apple-tax/
Those days are over, thanks to Google.
Maybe you have heard of Google's book scanning program? They can rent these machines which take screen shots with the monitor upside down very quickly.
The real problem is that the copy of Adobe acrobat pro needed to perform the OCR is so expensive there, the cost does not come down.
The fact that Australians keep buying this stuff in spite of the price, shows that it's not really too expensive. If it were too expensive, they'd just say no, or they'd do as many people suggest, and import it themselves.
This is really about envy. Australians aren't saying software prices are high; they're saying they're higher than the prices Americans are paying. Maybe they're higher for some stupid and unfair reasons, but they're still not high, as evidenced by the purchases. It's like someone being content with their salary, then they find out how a coworker make more money, and suddenly they're "underpaid."
What's especially hilarious is that the examples are all about "boxed" software: commodity stuff which is relatively easily replaced. If they were complaining that the native programmers were charging too much for custom development, I might have some sympathy, but that's not what I'm hearing.
You can whine that Gimp or a hundred other image utilities aren't suitable replacements for Photoshop for some particular job, but for most people's jobs (including mine) PS really is replaceable. I bet that's the case for 90% of Adobe's sales, if I may pull a stinky number out of my hairy ass.
JUST SAY NO! Those three words solve most of life's problems, and this problem is just another example. But people don't say no, and that leads me to the conclusion that there isn't really any "problem" at all. Australians, I declare that you are happy.
Last time I was in Kauai and Maui, it seemed like a huge chunk of the tourists were now from Australia. I talked to some of them, and they said it's actually cheaper for them to vacation in Hawaii than Bali which is closer (and more third world). And of course they said all this while doing the hand motion for throwing dollar bills out in front of them while ordering a free round for everyone around them.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Maybe Australia should look at what tariffs it's government is charging. In this case, I suspect Apple is right.
Either way, I know they all carry VERY large knives.
Actually, recentish changes to laws regarding knifes in Australia have made sure this no longer happens.
Because we don't pull this happy horse shit.
Because the manufacturer pays the GST before a product hits the shelves, that product is not going to be marked down for less than what they payed GST on. E.g, if the manufacturer has already paid a 10% tax on a $100 item, that item is not going to be sold for less than $110. What incentive is there to reduce prices and move product if you've already paid tax based on a higher price?
In a sales tax situation, products can be marked down without affecting tax liability for the producer and reducing it for the consumer - with a sales tax both the consumer and producer are better off.
Because people are willing to pay it. If Adobe charged half of what customers were willing to pay, would that make them A) business savvy, or B) incredibly bad at market analysis?
Blow on them a little and those trees fall over! They don't do so well on this side of the Tasman.
It's just the tax all non-Americans have to pay to ensure America remains great.
I think you've got a narrow view of Australians. Not all of them can fit a large knife in their purse.
There is never any one price any significant market can "bear" for a product, because markets are made up of a multitude of potential customers, each with their own "bearable" price.
Boomerangification means you have to do things like make the Delete key be temporary--content returns. And the "Enter" key must say "Return" like the old days.
Table-ized A.I.
Interesting, possibly the first time I didn't regret reading an InfoWorld article.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
AT LOT of people could get by with Corel products are 1/20 the price.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
When I worked at a very well known international humanitarian aid organization, we tried asking Adobe a few years back if we could buy their products directly from them, instead of via third parties here in Norway.
We were told that, no, we had to buy it Norway at full price, and it would be a breach of license to buy it from anywhere in the US.
At that time it cost about 17000NOK in the US, while it costed 38000NOK here in Norway (about $2800 vs. $6300). With a few licenses that adds up. And seeing where that money came from, it could've been used for a lot of good!
So the question is: Has Adobe changed their practice?
Their explanation for the difference in price was that "We've defined Norway as a high cost country". But wth, at that point they didn't even have representatives here!
My explanation, simple greed.
They might have changed practice since then for all I know and care. I've got alternatives, and do not use them anymore. In my line of work, that is quite a few lost sales for them since then.
PS: Posting as anon because of the sensitivity of the issue.
I recall years ago reading that Thailand Windows licenses being reduced to US$6 when their gov't threatened to roll out a "standard" Linux-based distro to their school system. Meanwhile I was expected to pay $150 or more. Creative pricing that most people are too dumb or numb or to accustomed to turning around & bending over...
Depends on what you are calling a "knife" and where exactly the "purse" is....
Imagine if the government of Australia, rather than bitching about prices, actually funded GIMP or LibreOffice directly? I'll bet that MS and Adobe would 'adjust' their pricing accordingly as this would not just affect Australia's buying preferences, but the markets worldwide.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Even after paying the shipping container and the VAT, it is still significantly cheaper than buying in Australia.
So why is there no business which buys goods in the US, ships them to Australia and undercuts the prices there then? That's not illegal, they could do it for a lot less than a commercial plane ticket and private shipping and you would not need to get felt up or irradiated by US security.
If any group in Australia would like to commission me to bring them a case of Adobe products, I am available. :)
"Except of course GST is 10% which is actually less than sales tax in some US states," -- yeah, well that not true at all for state sales tax, at the state level..... now it is true, only if you add in state+ some local sales tax, then there are only 7 out of 50 states with 10 or >10% sales tax.
Creative Suite would be expensive at a tenth of the price.
I used to work for Adobe doing support escalations - "Australian" support reps were under strict rules not to support grey marketed apps and had to call US support numbers for any help. US support would help you in ways they could, but if you needed replacement disks or whatever - they wouldn't ship overseas. US support reps couldn't even register the apps because it won't let you enter Aussie zip codes/phone numbers.
I say "Australian" btw because its just a local number that transfers the call to a robot in India.
actually, it doesn't matter how much it costs to fly from oz to us to buy the software...
tsa and ice won't let you back out with a suitcase of software or even just a pile of serial numbers, legit or not... and if you check your luggage, the chances of tsa not replacing your purchases with a couple pairs of old stinky shoes from some guy that "lost" their ipod.. is not zero.
so.. you'd need to add either attorney's costs and legal fees (if you care about the worker you shipped up here on this adventure).. or you could just pay someone in the us to buy and ship the software for you, and deal with oz customs and imiport duties.
> What is it that the US has against VAT? You have sales taxes etc. instead that perform the same purpose.
> Do you even understand how VAT works?
I don't know what the US has. But as an American who lived in Europe for years, I do understand about how VAT works, and I know what I have against it. I dislike it because
1. It obscures the amount of tax paid. Our system, whatever its faults, reminds me _every purchase_ of how much government costs. It remains to be seen what will happen here or in Europe as a result of governmental profligacy, but the European approach is not automatically better, and at this point, doesn't look all that promising.
2. It is regressive. The more you spend on consumption, the more tax you pay, and the poor spend a higher proportion of their income on consumption. Of course, you can mess with the system to try to neutralize some of this. But doing just provides opportunity to the lawyers and accountants.
3. It would be more complicated for us than for European states. We have several levels of taxing authority: federal, state, county, city, and even occasionally "special taxing districts." These vary from place to place. Keeping track of it all through manufacture and distribution would be complicated.
VAT is just a convenient way for governments to tax and to spend more without it being so obvious. I think the financial troubles of European countries in the last couple of years - apart from the famous prudence of the deutsche Hausfrau - are adequate evidence that we shouldn't rush to copy European (and Canadian) practice.
The most obvious explanation: until a few years ago ("few" ~= 10), 1 Australian dollar had been roughly equal to ~50 US cents since as long as anybody could remember. My guess is that the original prices were set based on that logic (double the US nominal price, then add some more), and as the Australian Dollar achieved nominal parity with the US Dollar, the prices just stayed with the same multiplier and markup because companies like Adobe realized they could get away with it.
Would I be right in assuming that adobe make some of the most pirated non-game software available? This kind of behaviour almost seems designed to encourage piracy. Apple and many others do similar things to us poor aussies, and now that our dollar is stronger than it has been in a long time, it makes it all the more galling. The fact that there are companies set up purely to circumvent stupid policies like this surely is a sign of the stupidity of it; (read the forums on whirlpool.net.au re: use of mail forwarding services like myus + VPNs to circumvent such idiocy) I have lots of sympathy for companies that lose money to piracy, but its hard to have too much sympathy when there are clear cases of price gouging like this.
haha you just gave away your age, 80's boy!
Longer warranties, import taxes and sales taxes are just costs of doing business.
Forgive me for being sceptical that a company who produces only software is actually affected by something as physical as a warranty claim. Also the tax information by law needs to be shown on the invoice and despite sales taxes being considerably lower for software in Australia than the USA, even if there were no taxes in the USA the cost is still not justified.
This is just gonna encourage more piracy.
For physical items I buy in the US when I can. And when I can't, I use a US shipping remailer. There's dozens of them around. I use shipito which gives me 2 physical addresses in the US, and 1 in Hong Kong and 1 in Europe. But google US remailer, you'll find dozens of these, do your research and pick one that looks good or has competitive pricing.
I also have a US phone number (just SIP service, but its easy to find US VoIP providers, hell you can even use Skype.)
And with US number and address you're pretty much as good as there. Some places might want a US credit card and address which is trickier, but you can (usually) get around that. Just say you're 'from Australia or in my case NZ but just visiting the US for 2 months' etc and that'll usually work.
But yeah. When it comes to software or anything digital, honestly, fuck them. Just pirate it.
Personally I think there SHOULD be government intervention and personally I think the government should outright state they won't care to protect copyright holders copyrights when they price gouge so substantially effectively making their software unaffordable.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Because people are willing to pay it.
Wrong.
It's because people are forced to pay it.
Where can I legally get a copy of Adobe CS6 outside of Adobe's supply chain? Nowhere. They have a government enforced monopoly allowing them to dictate prices above what the market is willing to bear.
If the market was willing, there wouldn't be price enquiries.
Awaken from your libertarian fantasy and visit the real world once in a while. The free market doesn't automagically fix things and prices are almost never set at what people are "willing" to pay, especially in monopolies.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
actually, it doesn't matter how much it costs to fly from oz to us to buy the software...
As I said, it's easier and cheaper just to order the software from a store that ships to Australia and get them to send the boxed copy.
Besides, if you buy from Adobe, they dont bother sending you anything physical. They just email you a serial number, if you want the physical media you have to pay extra for that. It worked this way the last time I bought CS from an Adobe reseller and that was CS3. They emailed us the serial numbers and we had to pay A$150 for a copy of the media.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I don't know the price landscape in Australia but...
I live in Switzerland and I see the price differences for import items coming from neighbour countries.
A book from Germany, just by passing the border is 30% more expensive, a cloth from Italy 50% more, and you name it...
How can this be, especially when you take in account that the VAT in EU countries is much higher than in Switzerland ?
Well, I came to the conclusion that the reason for it is: we pay the price without complaining !
Every company selling whatever in Switzerland simply apply the "how much would they be willing to pay for it" rule and therefore end up with fantasy prices.
A lot of international friends always states that we have such huge salaries here in Switzerland, well we need them to pay such ridiculous expensive goods !
Boycot all the products having fantasy prices !
The price of Ubuntu, LibreOffice and Gimp is the same there as here.
I used to have Semantec anti-virus till I discovered they were charging me $50 more than if I was living in the US/Europe (any other part of the world) for their products yearly subscription. They lost me a few years ago, so that's hundreds of dollars they haven't been getting from me. I switched to another anti-virus (two actually). People like Adobe know they have unique software, which is why they charge what they do. I say screw them, (and all other price gougers) I'd rather work with a lesser product/s than have these pirates extort extra money from my pocket just because I live in Australia. I've been using GIMP since 1996, and have never owned a copy of Abode Photoshop. I think all Australian companies/individuals should switch to GIMP (or another alternate) tomorrow just to let Adobe know how we feel about their pricing policy. (And switch to anything else of Adobe's that can be replaced by an alternate ... not sure how you'd replace Acrobat professional though.
Long term average is much closer to about 1AUD = 70-75 US Cents, only really going below 60c from 2001-2003, with a general upwards trend since (with a shortlived drop around 2009)
http://www.exfin.com/historical-forex-aud
Shorter version:
All prices are always set to maximize revenue. If companies could raise prices without alienating customers, they would go right ahead and do so, taxes or no taxes.