Everything is paid up front but we

[jimboa24]

or better yet 15 mins late to the Doc get charged and often appoint cancelled,,, wait 1hr past your time and nothing notta zilch.... just told oh we are busy.

Doctors often overbook themselves, trying to fit in as many patients as possible. The more patients they see, the more they get paid. If you're late, then it means you wasted their time on a no-show when they could have seen a paying patient, hence getting charged and the appointment canceled. Overbooking often means they end up having to spend more time with each patient than they actually scheduled, meaning that the later on in the day your appointment is, the more likely it is that you're going to have to wait on the Doc to finish his or her previous appointment. Sucks, but it's just how it is.

[belfpala]

Doctors often overbook themselves, trying to fit in as many patients as possible.

Restaurants do too. Chances are, if it's a busy place, your 7pm table is double or triple booked. Cancellations, no-shows, and so on.

[xenogear3]

Your paying for access of a specific length of time. Why, for example, would blizzard take the risk of letting you play WoW for a month THEN try to get you to pay for said month? You know going into the deal that when you pay the money, you will have the service from X to Y, and that is what you are paying for.

This is a VERY good topic.

Even Blizzard starts to become lazy on WoW, simply because people pay $15 upfront.

However, Blizzard is releasing new content for Hearthstone every 4 months, because Blizzard doesn't get paid if it doesn't release anything.

The rule is that you always get goods and service first, then pay.