Before discovering noeman I went to buy the Garmin Bluechart g2 for Aus/NZ for US160 as a download from the Garmin site. As soon as the site figured I was in Australia, the price went up to US251. No justifiable reason other than the Americans must have seen aussies walking around in diamond encrusted flip flops and silk budgie smugglers.

From my research, the reason is because they can get away with it. There is an Australian inquiry running at the moment on software price disparity between Aust and the US. Unfortunately I missed the submissions.

(from cio_com_au). According to Choice (Magazine), “We found that Australians are paying on average 34 per cent more for software, 51 per cent more for iTunes music, 88 per cent more for Wii games and 41 per cent more for computer hardware than US consumers.” It noted , “With one Microsoft software product, it would be cheaper to pay someone’s wage and fly them to the US and back twice, and get them to buy the software while overseas.” (a colleague is doing this for ARC GIS. She has worked out it is cheaper to fly to the US and back and buy it there than download and pay for it in Australia)

I will make a donation to noeman today. Much better value.