I recently purchased a map update for the GPS on my motorcycle through Amazon.com. After a year or so, the map data becomes noticeably out of synch with reality, especially in areas where there is a great deal of road construction. Plus, businesses such as gas stations open and close fairly regularly, meaning you can’t always trust the old map data to get you to a gas station in the boonies when you are running on fumes. I have never faced a close call myself, but it has directed me to a few stations with tumbleweeds rolling past rusty stumps of abandoned pumps.
What I actually bought was the license to visit their website and download updated map data up to four times each year for the usable lifetime (as defined by Garmin) of my GPS device. The right to do this costs about $100, as opposed to shelling out around $59 for each one-time purchase. What you actually receive for your money is simply a seven-digit alphanumeric code (like “JGKDFED”) which you then type in at the Garmin website.Â
This code could very easily have been sent to me in real-time via email. Instead, the code arrived printed on the back of a plastic card similar to a credit card or gift card, and covered with scratch-off latex like you would see on a lottery ticket.
The card was in turn mounted on a piece of cardboard and, along with a shoplifting detection device, encased in one of those infuriating clamshell packages that are the bane of modern consumerism not to mention being responsible for a large number of injuries on the part of people trying to open them.
The clamshell, which could  have been shipped in a padded envelope, was instead nested at the bottom of a shoebox-sized cardboard box, and the remaining 95% of the volume in the box was taken up by a few of those plastic bag balloons that have recently replaced foam peanuts as the padding of choice. The box, weighing all of about two ounces,  was then shipped to me via UPS and arrived at my back door about a week after I placed the order.
Putting aside all of the global warming, wasted materials, recycling, and fuel usages issues that surround this, it is frustrating to realize that the shipping and handling charges applied to this virtual item, as well as the delay in getting it, were totally unnecessary.Â
The entire transaction should have lasted 15 seconds and gone like this;
“Here’s $100.”Â
“Thanks. Now go to the website and type: ‘IAMASAP’ and you can download your maps.”Â
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