True. But if there’s anything to take away from all of this is that those prices aren’t natural, god-given or unavoidable. It’s probably a good idea for op to shop around - wound care, anesthesia and antibiotics shouldn’t be $2000 even in the US.

I’m not the person you are replying to, but I do wonder what “third world countries” you are thinking of when you hear “Western Europe”?

As someone who has lived in both the US and Germany (one of those “third world countries” with significantly lower health care cost, for both humans and animals) and who has seen the benefits and drawbacks of both countries - it’s completely delusional if you actually believe that someone who is supposedly living paycheck to paycheck is getting better health care in the US. The German system certainly has its flaws, but it beats the US in just about every sensible metric (accessibility, cost, life expectancy, infant mortality etc.), usually quite significantly so. The US does a solid number of things better than other countries, entrepreneurship and innovation for example, but health care absolutely isn’t among those things.

What’s new to me (I had no exposure to the veterinary health care system during my time in the US) is that the inflated fantasy prices aren’t limited to humans only, but extend to pets as well. Anesthesia and extensive wound care, antibiotics, aftercare etc. are pretty standard therapies and they should cost little over a tenth of what you were quoted for your typical house cat.

You honestly might want to shop around, because even within the US, those rates are almost certainly inflated.

I don’t think the downvotes are warranted. That is an exorbitant amount for the planned vet procedure OP describes.

Vet rates in Germany, for example, are regulated and wound care under anesthesia is pretty standard treatment. Even with multiple, complicated wounds, a round of antibiotics, extensive after care, this would be a three digit bill - while likely more than 200€, it would still be far closer to that number than OP’s tenfold quote…

Heck, even surgery for a complicated fracture wouldn’t come close to the 2000€ mark and can often stay below 1000€.

We are all aware that the US healthcare system works with ridiculously inflated fantasy prices, but that this extends to veterinary care is news to me.

Do not taunt Superhappyfunland!

Same here. It was my second favorite Reddit client (after Boost, and, for a while, Dash), but I feel he priced himself right out of the market. I’m waiting to see what Boost for Lemmy has to offer and at what cost.

I never really warmed up to Infinity for Reddit, but I’ll give it another shot. Connect and LiftOff aren’t bad either for being this early in development and Voyager just came out swinging.

A decade of development and optimization vs a couple of weeks/months.

It’s 22€ (24.50 USD) here. To the commenter who said that’s “one MacDonald,'s meal”, every single large McMenu here is under 10€. With the usual coupons, you’re looking at the cost of McDonald’s for my entire family, not just one meal.

I can still, comfortably, afford blowing that much money on an app. But it doesn’t even get me any of the many “Ultra” features (that’s 110€). Looking at the Ultra page, ljdawson has already made clear that almost all planned Lemmy quality of life features will be pay-gated.

It’s also a huge gamble: we have no idea how financially viable Sync will be in a much smaller and far more hostile to non-FOSS apps, community. Heck, I opted out of tracking (like most EU-members of Lemmy would have) and the app isn’t even loading any ads at all, the revenue generated for ljdawson is zero.

Ljdawson has already suspended development of the original Reddit client on at least one occasion even though it was massively successful. Don’t think for a second he won’t cut his losses and run if he doesn’t consider the Lemmy client a financial success. The “lifetime” purchase might buy you another 10 years of maintained and polished usage, it might buy you six months. It’s a gamble.

Instead of blowing the cost of a small (McDonald’s) or a large (Amusement Park) family outing on my second-favorite former Reddit client, I’m waiting for Boost to come out, with hopefully slightly more sensible pricing.

One time payment option was just added.

15€ here.