Johnfish said:
Their cables are way way over priced and they are a cutthroat organization.
While Monster is indeed overpriced, the company operates according to business principles that have a long history being the building-blocks of our capitalist society. In 1888, Cecil Rhodes had an idea to turn a rock into a fortune, by buying up all the supply of the rock around the world, and then using the art of advertisting to create a mythology around this rock, which was (especially at that time) practically worthless otherwise. The mythology and the control over the supply made the rock wildly desireable (and therefore wildly expensive) -- it had little intrinsic value itself.
And similar formulas have been used for the last century and longer. There are many ways to make a business a going concern, and be careful -- if you look closely at much of what you hold dear, your job perhaps, that of your family members, the things in your life which hold meaning, your pursuits, your interests, why you buy the things you do as opposed to more utilitarian choices, etc. -- you may very well find many instances of companies making profit on a
concept rather than on the utility of what they're offering.
Around 1928, someone did pretty much the same thing with a drawing of a mouse that Cecil Rhodes did with his rocks.
By the way, Cecil Rhodes' rocks? They were diamonds. He founded DeBeers.