First, you surely know about lurkers, and I guess that's what I mostly am - but I feel I owe "this community" something. Don't worry about GD making money - somehow (and you could probably figure it out as easily as I can), they prove that selling "razor blades" still works ... especially when you're the Gillette in a very big "niche." (And plenty of people pay 'em $5-10 REGULARLY, out of ignorance or laziness.) No DDC for me - my specs either work out within 12 mos. or they don't. Basically, GD *must* be good at marketing, because they really would have gone bust if my sense about everything they do except "price" - a very negative outlook - were anything like mainstream. But offending people is probably NOT something they worry about, even vets. I think their goal must be to keep some healthy percent of "people like us" in their fold - as I say, the whole story is not that my last 300 buys maybe averaged $3/each - AND THEN go from their current "share" of 2% of the 300 million Americans (total guess!) and the 0.01% of folks outside the U.S. ... to some much bigger percents, with many of those good for 2-10 names probably averaging $6-8 per. Make serious coin on whatever percent get renewed ... and maybe I ought to check out what the stock's selling at. It's like AOL used to be - good enuf and cheap enuf and there early enuf and advertising so much that you wonder if any other choice will be there a year from now (if tech is NOT your field).... In short, so easy a decision to make that more people (50% + ??) regging their 1st d.n. do it with GD than anybody else - I'd guess BY FAR. LAST - I think their algorithm treats different customers differently, depending on whether they're "bulk purchasers." I can't prove this, and maybe it's mostly paranoia, but it seems obvious to me that they COULD - and it certainly makes good business sense. (I have some, albeit far from conclusive, evidence, too. I mean that on the same day that you or I might be nixed on CDCsomething, somebody else might have success with it - and NOT because they were a virgin before they did, just not "spreading it around quite as much.) Seriously, if the micro-pennies they realize from the millions of names that get clicked on with only their ads ... and aftermarket auctions ... amounts to as much money as I think they do, maybe they even view US as OK customers to have, however low our average reg. price is. Somebody must know what THEIR actual cost is just on dot coms - by the 100's of millions per year. I'll bet it's under $5 per, maybe way under, so $2.95 may or may not be a "loss leader." Maybe, they're just doing what Amazon is doing - albeit with just a single product and barely anything to think about except how aggressive to price and how many billions of ads they should place here and there. At some point, they hope to morph into Wal-Mart, again on a much smaller scale.