Found a good article on something I've always suspected about.... the HDMI cable scam:

Let's begin by going back in history to the birth of really expensive cables. It started with speaker wire. When you connect a normal speaker to a normal stereo system, you are sending both a signal (in the form of an oscillating wave) and a lot of power (potentially hundreds of watts) through the speaker cable. Someone realized that to send a lot of power, a thick cable would cause less distortion. Thus, mega cables were born. And they were expensive.

Now run, hurry to take back those $200 Monster Cables you got at Christmas and replace them with cheaper versions!