Would You Pay Money to Improve Your Color Vision?

I know there are many colorblind people who would really love to have normal color vision. But would you be willing to pay for it and if so, how much would you spend?

There are some genetic experiments taking place to increase the color vision for colorblind people. The tests look really exiting and the results look promising. But nobody knows yet, how much of a perfect human color vision you—as a colorblind fellow—could gain through this genetic treatment. And of course nobody knows yet how big the price tag would be for it.

There are also tools available like colored contacts or Seekey and other possibilities to help colorblind people are under development. But are they worth the price?

On the other side many colorblind people have the dream to once become a pilot (or firefighter, or policeman, …), and would be willing to pay for a cure of their handicap. Unfortunately we have no clue yet, if any future treatment or tool will ever be able to give us back a color vision good enough to pass the requirements which are in use today. Of course, we can look into changing those requirements, but that’s another story.

The following poll is for colorblind people only—sorry:

How much would you pay at most to improve
your color vision ability?

  • I wouldn't pay anything (16%, 48 Votes)
  • 1 $ — 300 $ (11%, 33 Votes)
  • 301 $ — 1.000 $ (11%, 33 Votes)
  • 1.001 $ — 5.000 $ (11%, 34 Votes)
  • 5.001 $ — 10.000 $ (3%, 10 Votes)
  • > 10.000 $ (14%, 40 Votes)
  • I'd pay only if it would be completely cured afterwards (34%, 98 Votes)

Total Voters: 296

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To answer the above question you might have to know what I mean by improving your color vision ability. I would say this is something between being able to answer our most annoying game “what color is this?” and curing it completely. I don’t talk about curing color blindness here on purpose, as it is interesting to see if you would also pay money for an improvement of your color vision.

The poll is running for the next ten days. So stay tuned for the results and the follow up poll about how much money people pay for curing color blindness while subscribing to Colblindor.


3 Responses to “Would You Pay Money to Improve Your Color Vision?”

  1. kelly Says:
    November 7th, 2010 at 23:28

    I would pay over $100,000 to see colors as others do. I am an artist who has never seen the color green, or a beautiful rainbow, or a sunset subtle shades. I’d sell my house and live in a trailer to see these things.

  2. azmole Says:
    November 9th, 2010 at 21:15

    I was wondering if you choose to have only one eye treated would you be able close one eye, now I’m colorblind, then open it again and ,now I’m not?
    These people will make a fortune, if in fact, they are able to perfect a treatment with 8% of the male population being CVD there is a tremendous incentive.

  3. Daniel Flück Says:
    November 9th, 2010 at 21:20

    Maybe if you open and close your ‘colorblind’ eye fast enough, you’ll get an extra channel of color information! That would be great :-)

    Yes, unfortunately I think it will be used to make a lot of money. As of today, where people pay huge amounts of money to get colored contacts, just to successfully complete the Ishihara plates test.

    - Daniel

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