It's so nuts that Facebook was able to put a computer and cameras into sunglasses without increasing the price

Prescription glasses are basically just chunks of not-too-special plastic that you can buy online for $20 or less, but people refuse to believe that the whole industry is a scam when I try to tell them about it

That's because those $20 glasses are objectively worse than $200 Costco glasses. You might not think that the latter is worth the increased price, but for the vast majority of Americans it is.

Btw Zeiss (known to HNers for making EUV lithography hardware) also makes glasses and you can buy them online. Some of their lenses are $700. Not worth it for me, but I can definitely see how someone would be willing to pay even more for those optical specs

I have zeiss lenses on my glasses, they’re terrible. Full of scratches in 1.5 years. Worst money I’ve ever spent, my last no name €80 lenses went for years without a single scratch! Anecdata obviously

What model? High index or polycarbonate?

I have no idea, but i can copy some data from the package:

One is SV AS +2.5 sphere 0 cyl duravision platinum uv 1.60 index (guess this is what you’re talking about) uvprotect

The other is the same but 1.25 sphere

Hope it helps

They probably did not come with scratches, did they?

Don't scratch them. It's simple as that. Wash lens with soap. It's as simple as that.

What, do you think they scratched them on purpose? Avoiding scratching for thousands of hours isn't actually simple, and if some brand is less scratchable then that's a real benefit.

Or get glasses made with ... glass?

I've been wearing nothing but Zenni glasses for a decade, and they've been excellent the whole time

You can choose the material you put into them. Ray-Ban Scamglasses from the Scam Shop are definitely NOT better. Even Costco glasses aren't better.

I bought mine for $50 years ago and they are perfect. "Objectively" better I would say.

The $30-50 zenni glasses/lenses in my experience are actually substantially clearer than the (absolute ripoff) $400-500 rayban ones. Same prescription, and the zenni ones even arrived quicker! Frame consistency is a bit of an issue though, I bought a few more cheap pairs with the 'same' frame a few years later and they changed the design subtly which made them fit worse.

Zenni's men's glasses are much higher quality than any of the expensive glasses I've tried. I don't know if it's different for women's glasses.

It's because of insurance.

Anything insurance touches becomes expensive, because insured individuals are no longer price sensitive, so there is no incentive to lower costs by providers.

My employer pays for my vision insurance, whether I want it or not, so I may as well maximize the benefit with the "best" hardware I can get for "free."

Your employer offers it, and you use it, because the government specifically carved out a tax exemption for it. Without the tax benefit, there would not be much reason for an employer to provide you vision insurance rather than the equivalent cash.

I set up the vision health plan for my company, and you can certainly waive that (and save some out-of-pocket $$ as well, as employer cannot pay 100% of the insurance, ot at least I couldn't find a 100% option).

And buy the glasses at Zenni et al.

What about thr crop insurance program?

The $20 glasses increase in price sharply when you add vague “nice-to-haves” like blue light filtering.

Likewise, store bought lenses are available with $20 out of pocket expenses.