Agreed. We've had cheap gas way too long in this country. If gas prices were more in line with Europe and Asia, a hell of a lot more people would be using public transit.
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Google: It's 'Irresponsible' Of Apple To Make Everything Expensive
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Agreed. We've had cheap gas way too long in this country. If gas prices were more in line with Europe and Asia, a hell of a lot more people would be using public transit.
That is over 320% profit margin
Complete rip-off, but I am surprised so many people pay for that.. I guess they see "ONLY $20 PER MONTH AND PLAN" but they don't look at the fine print with hidden costs.. and the 2-3 year contracts
Check this out: http://www.whistleout.com/CellPhone...pared-is-it-cheaper-to-pay-full-price-upfront
Then many Apple fanboys upgrade their iPhone every year when new model comes out with minor changes. Apple knows what they are doing.
Sadly, people don't see this or do cost-benefit analysis when they upgrade their phones every year. When I bring it up on FB or anywhere, people go nuts bashing me calling me "moron" or "misinformed", etc. This is why I do not own any apple products - DO NOT OVERLOOK THE FINE PRINT OF CONTRACTS!
Right, because our 100+ year old oil driven economy, government and transportation iinfrastructure would just "instantly" be able to adapt to more people taking public transit vs driving
Right, because our 100+ year old oil driven economy, government and transportation iinfrastructure would just "instantly" be able to adapt to more people taking public transit vs driving
Who said anything about instant? Gas prices fluctuate all the time, it's not like slow change is no change. Besides, I'd rather have beachfront property than a home in Atlantis.
Right, because 200 years of human industry is really gonna destroy and matter to a 6 billion year old eco system that has survived and rebuilt itself from far far far far worse.
Right, because 200 years of human industry is really gonna destroy and matter to a 6 billion year old eco system that has survived and rebuilt itself from far far far far worse.
If you're so in-tune with our ecosystem, maybe you could ask it nicely to leave my stuff alone? It's already eaten a hundred feet of our shallow beach in the last decade. The rest of us with beachfront property would appreciate it (and gladly compensate you) if you put your supernatural abilities to work instead of jabbering about them on the Internet.
DeathFromBelow
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Right, because 200 years of human industry is really gonna destroy and matter to a 6 billion year old eco system that has survived and rebuilt itself from far far far far worse.
Life on Earth would survive a nuclear war, too. Easily. I wouldn't recommend testing it though.
Furthermore, a lot of people who hate Apple because the iPhone is a rip off buy flagship phones from Samsung which probably have about the same profit margin.
Godmachine
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Apple is business savvy but smart? No. If they opened up their platform a bit more and lowered prices a bit they would still make tons of money and even welcome many who consider their cost of entry to be too high.
Apple knows that the smartphone market is now drenched in choices. They have only the fact that once you are locked in their ecosystem its a fucking bitch to get out to prevent people from jumping ship.
I know people that would drop Apple is a heartbeat if they could move all their purchased content to other platforms. Apple has also ruined their mobile iOS with bloated junk that makes new updates a monster to cope with. Apple's tablet market is also disappearing thanks to the plethora of choice. I can buy a $120 Windows 8.1 full desktop tablet with TONS of better options than an iPad. I can run all my games streaming through it and play with a real Xbox controller and I can play virtually any software normal Windows can on it all with excellent battery life (after some tweaks) and its just all around better. So the choices are $500 tablet with a closed ecosystem and some decent mobile games but a beautiful screen or $120 tablet with access to my Windows PC and my ENTIRE Steam library streamed from anywhere in the world.
Apple knows it needs to expand into other platforms. That's why they are investing in electric cars and other weird avenues. They've made their massive push now they can only maintain a profit but they won't ever created thunderbolts like the iPhone or iPad again when the urge to upgrade gets less and less reasonable. I know people with iPad 1's that are perfectly happy and have zero intent on upgrading. I know people still rocking iPhone 4's and refuse to upgrade.
Google is a massive threat to Apple right now. Google has its fingers in lots of cookie jars and even with Apple's massive horde of cash it won't last forever. All it takes are some seriously poor investments to destroy that capital. Granted its a lot of capital but without someone like Jobs to parse the market and find the need or create one they are basically drifting on their previous victories. Google meanwhile continues to innovate and dominated massive sectors of data growth that Apple can only dream of.
Just had a Winbook TW802 delivered this morning
Quad core Atom, 8" screen, 2GB ram, 32GB flash, USB & SD Slot. All for $99+shipping/tax
Amazing tablet for the price. It was worth the price just to have a Windows tablet to play with & learn.
Already streaming movies & TV shows off my htpc.
Or a lot more people would be broke and have no savings.
Outside of a few large cities, there is no usable mass transit for most people, and since mass transit is heavily subsidized by the tax payer, they could never raise enough taxes to pay for enough mass transit to carry even 15% of the population.
My simple 15 minute commute would likely take me over an hour and several bus trasfers.
That is over 320% profit margin
Complete rip-off, but I am surprised so many people pay for that.. I guess they see "ONLY $20 PER MONTH AND PLAN" but they don't look at the fine print with hidden costs.. and the 2-3 year contracts
That's exactly what most the people at work who have iPhones do. They only look at the up front cost, not how much it will cost over then next 2+ years.
I know someone who leased a BMW last year, instead of just keeping their 3 year old top of the line Toyota. The Toyota just wasn't good enough (it had a lot more options and was more expensive than the Toyota I recently bought.) They also upgraded their iPhone to a 6, as their old iPhone was falling apart.
Yet this person complains how they can't afford anything.
Meanwhile my 3 year old Android phone still works fine, and I'll still be driving my lower cost Toyota long after it's paid off (why pass up 0% for 5 years), and will still be driving it after they have given the BMW back to the dealer and have had to lease a new one a few more times.
dgz
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You mean the wealthiest (BY FAR) nation in the world couldn't afford to offer basic things such as public transportation? Surely you must be joking.
We're screwed no matter how you slice it. It's not just people getting to work, we depend heavily on oil to grow food (all our major fertilizers are created using oil), harvest it, and get it to market. Modern society would not exist without cheap oil, the USA especially is completely unprepared for that changing. It's a chicken and egg problem where we won't invest in public infrastructure until we need to, but we won't need to until the price becomes painful enough and by then, it's too late to prevent an economic armageddon.
CreepyUncleGoogle
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Just had a Winbook TW802 delivered this morning
Quad core Atom, 8" screen, 2GB ram, 32GB flash, USB & SD Slot. All for $99+shipping/tax
Amazing tablet for the price. It was worth the price just to have a Windows tablet to play with & learn.
Already streaming movies & TV shows off my htpc.
Yeah, it's almost impossible to turn away from that price and with the extra memory + USB port its a lot more [H]-friendly than most of the other little tablets out there. Awesome that it's working for you.
I'm still kinda wishy-washing about buying one or waiting for the Cherry Trail Atoms to come out since they're supposed to have 16EU iGPUs instead of the 4EUs in the current version. I almost don't wanna wait and if the next generation is the same price, I can probably just buy a new one later this year when they're on the market.
jbltecnicspro
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It's irresponsible because we idiotic consumers may pay for something we can't afford just to be on the latest and greatest... I think that's what's "irresponsible" about it? I don't know. By the way - I hate the term "consumers." Makes all of us people sound like a bunch of fucking mindless cattle standing around eating and "consuming" away.
They consume maybe the same resources
But they cost more to build. Many models lack the economy of scale for one which obfuscates comparisons sometimes. Barring that, quality costs. There's very little one manufacturer knows that another doesn't know. If there is a difference in quality its because they sink more money in it. There is no magic dust.
kbrickley
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I still don't see how that makes the company irresponsible ... I do agree that it makes the consumer irresponsible though ... purchasing beyond our means is a fairly recent thing (from the 80's forward maybe) and it has definitely created a number of problems (including, but not limited to, overpriced elite brand consumer goods and the economy crushing housing bubble crash in 2007) ...
a company, including Google, is in business to make money ... Google may have access to other revenue streams through their extensive advertising network but they are just as interested in monetizing the consumer as an Apple or BMW or Pfizer is ... as long as a company isn't engaging in fraudulent business practices there is nothing irresponsible about making money or profit from their respective consumer base ... and it is not the business' responsibility to determine who or who cannot afford their product unless credit is involved
Toyota: "It's irresponsible of Mercedes-Benz to make everything expensive."
This from the company that's losing money on Youtube. Google, you failed to offer a value proposition that customers liked, in part because "we'll make it free if you let us sell you" is not value. Time to maybe start charging a few bucks for things that are worth it.
This from the company that's losing money on Youtube. Google, you failed to offer a value proposition that customers liked, in part because "we'll make it free if you let us sell you" is not value. Time to maybe start charging a few bucks for things that are worth it.
D
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Apple makes luxuryone could even say vanityproducts. It's stupid to apply a term like "irresponsible" to the pricing of such.
The thing is though, that line of reasoning isn't Apple's responsibility, it's a larger problem with how we've structured our society. Same goes for using finite resources on frivolous things.
I don't know sounds like a pretty accurate portrayal of how it works and how companies look at it.
That being said, when it comes to Apple, they are more like perfume or champagne. If they are almost pure profit because unlike a car their customers are buying purely on faith in its perception and not on actual value. Their price point defines them and if they were to offer a better value, they would lose their prestige.
heatlesssun
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Google is going to start doing paid YouTube subscriptions and from the reaction to it here in the thread on the topic, it doesn't seem like the idea is very popular. YouTube is one of most popular things on the Internet and many people use it daily but once you start asking for money for something that used to be free it's never going to go over well. Indeed this a big challenge in general when it comes to online content. Clearly many people are willing to consume it and love content when free. Not so much so when there's money involved.
That's why we now unfortunately have things like native advertising as per click through banner advertising revenue has reached rock bottom. There are going to be a number challenges is how content gets funded. This is one great thing about the Apple business model, it's based primarily on hardware, software and services are secondary. It's easier to sell devices (though Apple has it down to science like no one else) than services. At services that people expect to be free.
Mercedes is now owned by Daimler so it's no longer a true German car like say BMW. Still, it's an insult to Mercedes to compare it to Apple Made in China. The only thing premium about Apple is the marketing because the technology and quality are mediocre at best.
jbltecnicspro
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I was being sarcastic.
And I agree with you. This is a free market - they can set the prices to whatever the hell they want to. Whether or not people can afford that price isn't their business. If Apple can mark the hell up out of their products and still sell them left and right, then good for them. If someone doesn't like it, then they're free to compete.
kbrickley
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What isn't "Made in China" these days ... all of the major mobile phones are manufactured in China ... it is certainly valid to criticize Apple for their features or quality issues with their products but singling them out for Chinese quality issues doesn't make sense since all their competitors come from the same place (but sometimes different manufacturers than Foxconn)