Your glasses cost $5 to make. You paid $300. And one company you've never heard of is the reason why. Luxottica owns Ray-Ban. They own Oakley. They own Persol. They own Oliver Peoples. They own Costa. They own Arnette. They make the glasses for Prada, Chanel, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, and Michael Kors. They own LensCrafters. They own Pearle Vision. They own Sunglass Hut. They own Target Optical. They own the online retailer Glasses.com. They own EyeMed the vision insurance provider that tells you where to buy your glasses. And they own the lab that makes your lenses. One company controls the frames. The brands. The stores. The insurance. The lenses. And the price. A guy spent 11 years working in the optical industry 4 in a lab making lenses, 3 managing a retail optical store, 4 consulting for independent eyewear brands trying to compete with Luxottica. He told me: "The frame on your face cost between $2 and $5 to manufacture. The lenses cost $1.50 to $3. You paid $300–$700. That's not a markup. That's a scheme. And it only works because one corporation owns every step between the factory and your face and nobody knows it." "There are 4 billion people on Earth who need vision correction. Most of them are paying a 1,000%–2,000% markup on a medical device they literally cannot live without because the entire industry from factory to face is controlled by one company pretending to be 50 different brands." "The glasses on your face right now are almost certainly made in the same Italian factory as every 'luxury' brand on the wall at Sunglass Hut the store that Luxottica also owns." Here are 10 things the glasses industry doesn't want you to know and exactly how to stop overpaying for a product that costs less than your morning coffee to make: 🧵