A few months ago I wanted to reset the clock on our electronic telephone answering machine but I couldn't find the owner's manual. I was really thrilled when I used the Internet to find the manufacturer's web site. Their customer service department had all the manuals for products that they sold. It was easy to look up the question I had or even dowwload a pdf file of the whole manual. I sang the praises of the Internet and thoughtful manufacturers.
But companies must have come to their senses and realized that they were giving away information that could just as easily be sold. When our recent purchase of a VCR happened to have no users manual in the box, I looked it up on the internet and found that I could either look at it on the server site or buy it for $38.
Now recently I tried to get a manual for our land-line wall-mounted wireless phone. The manufacturer's web site directed me to a web site named Retrevo. It was available all right, but at a price of $6. And you can't even browse in the books like you can in Amazon bookstore. I'll bet we're going to see more and more charges for information that used to be free. Good luck.
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