The freebies last year (Galaxy Tab 10.1, Chromebook, verizon hotspot) more than outweighed the ticket price and airfare. Depending on which session you went to (which meant more freebies - arduino kits, more phones, etc), you could make a solid profit off a trip to I/O.
I'm curious at $900 of just how much they plan to give out this time.
Yeah, you figure at that price they're going to give out heads-up display glasses or something ridiculously cool like that. That was my first thought, anyway.
They might be worth the price of admission squared. It simply doesn't matter if the cost of that admission is out of reach. I worry that an ever increasing ticket price will put this event, if it hasn't already, squarely in the realm of corporate-sponsored attendance.
Which means any healthcare related company isn't likely to attend, since this "free hardware" is against gift restrictions relating to healthcare related businesses.
I don't see why it would be -- couldn't you characterize it as development kit? I assume it belongs to the employer not to the attendee, but that's just a company rule. I thought the rule was you couldn't pay "kickbacks", not that you couldn't receive them, and a phone is hardly a healthcare service itself anyway.