The Trouble With Hubble

I thought Dollar Shave Club was brilliant. I got it. It tapped into my deep seeded desire to stick it to the man who had been stickin’ it to me since I first picked up a razor. I bought a monthly subscription for the Executive (6 blades) and quit after 1 month because, frankly, the blades got dull faster than an internet meme. No harm, no foul, it wasn’t for me but I wished them well.

I may be getting a bit cranky in my middle age but I now feel like I need a virtual machete to pare back all of the e-mail and social media subscription offers I get in my e-mail and social feeds. While I scroll and delete most of them, if they make a claim that catches my eye, I go deeper, to see if that claim passes the sniff test. In my opinion Hubble, a new subscription contact lens service, doesn't. They're Claim "Daily Contacts at Half the Price" reminds me of Steve Martin in the Jerk guessing your weight. If he is wrong you win a prize from a huge selection except you only actually win the prizes on one square inch of the prize wall. At the risk of triggering a fake news discussion, a little "tip fingering"(the keyboard equivalent of tip toeing) through the on-line contact lens world finds that "like for like", National Brand soft Hydrogel contact lenses like the Hubble offering are sometimes LESS expensive and never twice the price.

Here's how it works. Hubble buys their lenses from a company called St. Shine who is a leading private label contact lens manufacturer based in Taiwan. They are a good company and make colored lenses and clear contact lens lens overruns for many companies. Hubble is buying St Shine's hydrogel lens, an older material technology that each of the branded companies still have use in their older generation daily disposable contact lenses. Bausch + Lomb's Softens Daily Disposables, CooperVision's ProClear 1 Day, Alcon's Focus Dailies and Aqua Comfort Plus brands, and J&J's Moist are all hydrogel lenses with similar water content and oxygen transmissibility.

A quick look at two sites, one retail chain web site and a pure e-commerce web site tell the tale of where Hubble's claim falls down. In no case was Hubble half the price. In fact, you can get CooperVision’s Clariti lens, a latest generation, silicon hydrogel lens that allows more oxygen to reach your eye, for about a quarter more a day. BTW I did not include the manufacturers' rebates that were offered with a number of these lenses making them even cheaper.

What Hubble wants us to do is look at the newest, branded, Silicon Hydrogel lenses like MyDay, or Total 1 which are premium, new technologies and assume that their lens is the same. That my friends feels a bit like a bait and switch. I can cut your monthly car payment in half (if you downgrade from a BMW to a Dodge). When it comes to Hubble-Buyer Beware. Their claim should be Comfortable Daily Contact Lenses for about the same price as other on-line retailers. Perhaps a name change to Humble as well.

Maybe now they will stop filling up my FB feed.........