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I'm surprised by the outrage in this post. This is a very common - indeed, necessary - practice in retail. A friend of mine manages a high-end retail store in

by cscotta 16y ago

I'm surprised by the outrage in this post. This is a very common - indeed, necessary - practice in retail. A friend of mine manages a high-end retail store in the area. He tells me that there are a number of people who match this buying profile. The products either show up on Craigslist, eBay, or are moved out of state to be sold elsewhere, often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons. Like it or not, in pretty much any retail environment, this practice is unacceptable. He also tells me that these small groups of people will often approach customers in the parking lot as they exit their vehicle, offering them cash to enter the store, buy the goods with a few crisp hundred-dollar bills, and to keep the change. This gray market is very real. Beyond that, the guy admits he knew of the policy and was willingly violating it. There's really not much room for outrage here.

viraptor 16y ago
Why would a high-end retail store care? They sell some product. They might be unwilling or unable to enter some market - and this guy does it for them. The retail store still receives the money and people who get the product are aware of the fact that they paid more than they would at the shop. I still don't get why this practice is unacceptable. The shop doesn't seem to lose anything here.
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  Because they feel that shopping experience is part of their brand and people buying their "high-end" products in large quantities just to sell them elsewhere would hurt the brand on long term. Don't forget that Apple is very careful about its brand and image. I'm not saying I agree with this practice, that's just the reason this is disallowed.
  - mnemonicsloth 16y ago
    they feel that shopping experience is part of their brand You're right, but say it like you mean it. They treat your opinion of their company as their property. That's what having a brand means.
    - dasil003 16y ago
      No it's not. It's more like a softer version of anti-slander than it is like they own your opinion. Are they going to send you a threatening letter if you don't like them?
    - philwelch 16y ago
      "Property", or "responsibility"?
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      Is "attempting to influence it through their policies" equivalent to "treating it as their property"?
  - dmn001 16y ago
    I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue. I still have the view though that if someone has the money they should be able to buy it and a lifetime ban is not really ideal. Also a CNN article I read recently means the limit of 2 isn't stopping the trade in Hong Kong: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/08/ipad.hong.kong.china.sales/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/08/ipad.hong.kong.china.sale...
    - pyre 16y ago
      > I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue. If a retailer is unable or unwilling to enter a market, why should they be able to artificially ban anyone in that market from obtaining their product? Take this outside of the context of Apple here. If Universal decides to release a DVD in the US, but wait 2 years to release that same DVD in the UK, should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace. If anything, Apple is losing that revenue because they are 'unable and/or unwilling to enter that market,' not because someone isn't in the store shopping for their iPad. The argument that Apple is losing money over this is like the argument that the media industries make when they claim that every download is a lost sale.
      - whatusername 16y ago
        You've never heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code I'm not saying it's right - just that it's not new.
        pyre 16y ago
        That's exactly why I used that example. Plenty of people think that DVD region coding is unfair and wrong, so I don't understand how this is any different. Saying that this guy somehow 'wronged' Apple is like saying that someone who buys DVDs outside of their region code (and uses a region-free dvd player) is somehow 'wronging' the movie studios.
  - poikjhgvfgbnm 16y ago
    You don't just buy an Apple iProduct - you embrace the Apple lifestyle. That's why iPads come with adoption certificates, simply handing over money for one would devalue the whole experience of transferring the love from Jobs to you.
    - rapind 16y ago
      I'm on my third mac (I just can't find a comparable product to a MacBook Pro), but the whole apple lifestyle stuff is a big turn off for me. If I could get a comparable laptop (obviously by my own preferences) then I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, just so I didn't have to feel like I was part of some Apple fanboy club.
      - wtallis 16y ago
        I'm pretty sure that the majority of Apple customers feel that way or at least aren't interested in any kind of "Apple lifestyle". The proportion of Apple customers who are true fanboys is probably no higher than the fraction of Dell customers who are gamers with too much money and completely unrealistic opinions about the relative merits of AMD vs Intel and Nvidia vs ATI. The stupid rich Apple fanboys get more disdain than the stupid rich gamers because the Apple fanboys are more ostentatious and the gamers [ab]use technical terminology that makes them sound less subjective.
      - alextingle 16y ago
        I gave up on my PowerBook 12" last year. It had pretty good software, but the hardware was really disappointing. I've bought a Lenovo Thinkpad, put Ubuntu on it and I'm very very happy.
      - roc 16y ago
        I've long told my friends that the single biggest drawback of Apple products is the supposed "lifestyle". The attitude? not my thing. The people in the stores? not my people. Even the places they locate the stores are not my kinda places. Unfortunately, they have great products I really enjoy and their service is phenomenal.
    - 16y ago
- tedunangst 16y ago
  Why they care: I was recently shopping for a camera. The one I wanted was supposed to retail for about $900. But it's new and popular, so it's selling for $1100 (or out of stock). I've decided that's too much, so I'm considering other options. If the only message I got was out of stock, I'd probably wait. But upon learning that the price is actually $1100, that triggered a different psychological response, and now I'm looking for something cheaper. Something from a different manufacturer. So sure, in the short term, they are selling all they can. But in the future, when they have more capacity, they just lost a sale.
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    That only explains why companies want to limit the ability of customers to resell their product, not why companies should be allowed to do this.
    - codyrobbins 16y ago
      Are you serious? They don't need your permission to do this—it's their product, they can implement whatever sales policies they like. They don't have any responsibility to defend the practice, it's their prerogative. But even if it wasn't, they simply don't want middle men marking up their products and taking a cut, while at the same time depleting their in-store stock. I don't blame them.
      - fleitz 16y ago
        Apple doesn't want middle men marking up their product? If that is so then how come I can buy an Apple product from Best Buy for the same price as from the apple.com? Is Best Buy selling these items for the same price they paid for them? I believe Best Buy is what one would call a middle man.
        a-priori 16y ago
        Or perhaps Apple marks up the online store similarly to the markup that retail stores do?
- Perceval 16y ago
  Think about it in terms of concert/sporting event ticket sales. Everyone hates scalpers. They aren't real fans, they're not going to go see the act/game. They know when all the ticket sales are going to be, since their entire life revolves around getting tickets, and they know all the pre-sales and other ways of snapping up tickets. They buy tickets in huge blocks when possible, use intermediaries and partners to buy more tickets to get around any limits. When you, the fan, get around to buying tickets for the event you find that they're all sold out already (except for the nosebleeds). But you can get tickets on Craigslist for 3x the face value of the ticket from some guy who bought several large blocks for the sole purpose of re-selling them with a huge markup. Maybe the venue shouldn't care if re-sellers are buying up all the tickets, but it sure makes for a shitty experience for their actual market (i.e. the people showing up for the event). It also limits the venue's ability to control supply and demand because they no longer have any direct say over the market price for their good/service. So both fans and the venues seem to be worse off, while the middle man makes a big profit by artificially restricting supply. The guy in the article exhibits the same type of buying behavior that a scalper would: buying more iPads than a normal individual would require and then reselling them at a markup. Apple doesn't have any way to tell that he's trying to extend their market abroad to people that can't purchase an iPad locally. But I'm pretty sure they have the same view toward a middleman that concert venues would. And the local customers trying to get an iPad when supplies are scarce are also going to be frustrated that one individual is making (effectively) block purchases. One of the cardinal rules of good business is to cut out the middleman. That seems to be what's going on here.
  - tbrooks 16y ago
    I think the ticket analogy is a little loose. Once tickets are sold out, there are none left to buy but from the scalpers. Apple will make more iPads if they sell out. The supply is almost limitless.
    - SandB0x 16y ago
      "Extra dates added, by popular demand"
    - 16y ago
_delirium 16y ago
It's common, but necessary? It's an attempt to avoid the effects of an actual free market by attempting to prevent secondary markets from emerging. An alternative would be to compete on a normal market basis, selling products to willing buyers for mutually agreed upon prices, without attempting to further restrict what they do with them after purchase.
- philwelch 16y ago
  The pricing of the product and whether or not the product is "locked down" are two totally separate issues. Even if retailers and manufacturers raised prices during supply pinches and the initial rush, that wouldn't mean the product would be any more or less locked down. As long as sales are made, any price is "mutually agreed upon". Manufacturers just choose to agree to a lower price than they could otherwise get away with, which causes shortages and rationing.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    By "restrict what they do with them" I didn't mean the iPad's technological lock-down stuff, just the fact that Apple's attempting to stop resales, i.e. trying to control how people further down the supply chain dispose of the product.
- lenley 16y ago
  It's very difficult to pull of decent price discrimination in practice.
jraines 16y ago
It seems the outrage is mostly about the seemingly excessive punishment. After all, he wasn't sneaky. It's up to Apple to enforce the policy for normally purchasing customers. His behavior was no different than someone who was ignorant of the policy. [edit, ok, a little, but presumably the ignorant could innocently visit different stores, too] And then on top of that, they refuse to give further information that they obviously have. Lifetime limit? The policy says there is a limit on the number that customers can purchase, the number 2 clearly seems to mean "per customer" or "for now". Clearly the lifetime limit is not two. So what is it? Or is it just weasel words?
- cakesy 16y ago
  I don't see much excessive punishment, they did rough him up, take him out the back and break his fingers, or even march him out of the store. Also, like a lot of big companies, they tell there employees to not answer tricky questions, because they often get it wrong, or make up stuff. On top of that, the employees probably don't know much more.
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  Clerk: Sorry, but you've violated our policy. Customer: What exactly is your policy? Clerk: I'm not allowed to tell you. Customer: Then how am I supposed to observe the policy? Clerk: I'm not allowed to tell you. Customer: ??? Clerk: I've said too much already. ------ ISPs are notorious for having similarly obscure bandwidth caps.
barrkel 16y ago
The price is artificially low for the demand. Fighting against this is essentially fighting against the free market. If you're a capitalist, or believe in free markets, there's plenty to be outraged by here.
- philwelch 16y ago
  It's not some kind of moral imperative that you have to raise prices to the prevailing market rate if you're selling electronics or baseball tickets.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    But if you're a profit-oriented free market agent, and you see an arbitrage opportunity, would it be wrong to take advantage of it? Isn't objecting to arbitrage wrong? I don't see that the making of profit by buying low and selling high is wrong.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      It's not wrong, but it's not wrong for Apple to cut this guy off, either.
    - bena 16y ago
      But creating an arbitrage opportunity by buying all of the supply that would be readily available if you hadn't intervened is wrong. If there are 100 widgets and 200 people want widgets, it is wrong for a third party who has no particular desire for widgets to buy all 100 widgets and sell them for an insane markup. He changed a 50% deficiency of supply into a 100% supply, artificially reducing it. This allows him to artificially increase the price. All in all, this is why I'm hardly ever a first adopter. I let the sharks and the morons fight over the buggy 1st generation crap and then swing around when the 2nd or 3rd generation hardware hype isn't out of control.
      - eru 16y ago
        If you can pull off cornering a market, than you have earned your profit. It's very difficult in practise and people have probably lost more money than they won. From Wikipedia: "Although there have been many attempts to corner markets in everything from tin to cattle, to date very few of these attempts have ever succeeded; instead, most of these attempted corners have tended to break themselves spontaneously. The party attempting to corner a market can become very vulnerable due to the size of their position, especially if their attempt becomes widely known. If the rest of the market senses weakness, it may resist any attempt to artificially drive the market any further by actively taking opposing positions. When the price starts to move against the cornerer, they are in a very difficult position, as it is likely to be impossible to exit much of their position without catastrophically moving prices against themselves. In such a situation, many other parties will be able to profit from the cornerer's need to unwind their position." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market)
wrs 16y ago
Outrage? Author's comment: "I don't think that I was wronged at all. I'm not even upset, nor do I think I was complaining."
- joezydeco 16y ago
  Sure took a lot of pixels to not complain about it.
  - wisty 16y ago
    Well, at least he warned others.
  - Confusion 16y ago
    Yeah, because he was going through the trouble of relating a complete, nicely told, story. What's up with this Twitter attitude? "Bought iPads for others overseas; now banned from buying iPads as per Apple's policy" is the kind of story you like to read?
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      No, but that's because the story fundamentally isn't interesting. It's the epitome of dog-bites-man, and we're only hearing about it because Apple anti-fanboys are hyping it.
      - joezydeco 16y ago
        I was also being somewhat facetious. The article opens with this: I had planned on reviewing the iPad in my next post... Another iPad review from a random blogger? Really? This isn't a Twitter attitude, it's an attitude of "nobody really gives two cents about your opinion". And yet, here I am typing this. The internet is hard.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
>often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons If Joe Retailer can't or won't enter a particular market but Bill Reseller will, Joe selling products to Bill sounds like a pretty efficient solution to the problem of how to get the product into a market that wants to buy it.
- dagw 16y ago
  Joe might have long term strategic reasons to want to keep his product out of that particular market, especially if the product can be seen as a loss leader for other products. In that cases the efficient solution for Joe is to to everything he can to keep his product only in markets where he stands to make the most long term profit, even if it means sacrificing short term sales. In the real world you often have to think two three steps further than you had to do to pass econ 101.
elai 16y ago
I understand the policy, but they handled it fairly rudely.
biafra 16y ago
I think it's ok to limit how many iPads you may buy for the time period when they are scarce. But banning him from buying another iPad for _life_ ist just ridiculous.
sshconnection 16y ago
For the last month, droves of apple fanboys have been defending every ridiculous move by apple no matter how misguided it may be. What kind of doublethink are you people practicing? Developers arguing that we shouldn't be able to write software for an iPhone unless it was "originally coded" in objective-c? I'm waiting for people to start bashing net neutrality or spreading wholesale FUD about open source because it might somehow pose a threat to the Apple Experience. I'm typing this on a macbook pro, and I have an iPhone. For the last few years, I've enjoyed using apple products. I found that osx was a nice *nix development platform. Sadly, their recent decisions have been so disappointing to me that I've decided to stop supporting their platform. I've already ordered an android phone. My next laptop, like my current desktop, will be running linux. It's very bizarre to watch so many people who claim to support open software systems defending Job's every move. It seems like some strange form of Stockholm syndrome. As for the rest of you, I encourage you to join me in voicing your disappointment with your wallets.
arantius 16y ago
> Like it or not, in pretty much any retail environment, this practice is unacceptable. Why? Can you explain the rational reason why a retail store would want to keep someone from paying full price for their items?

by cscotta 16y ago

viraptor 16y ago

Why would a high-end retail store care? They sell some product. They might be unwilling or unable to enter some market - and this guy does it for them. The retail store still receives the money and people who get the product are aware of the fact that they paid more than they would at the shop. I still don't get why this practice is unacceptable. The shop doesn't seem to lose anything here.

DrJokepu 16y ago
Because they feel that shopping experience is part of their brand and people buying their "high-end" products in large quantities just to sell them elsewhere would hurt the brand on long term. Don't forget that Apple is very careful about its brand and image. I'm not saying I agree with this practice, that's just the reason this is disallowed.
- mnemonicsloth 16y ago
  they feel that shopping experience is part of their brand You're right, but say it like you mean it. They treat your opinion of their company as their property. That's what having a brand means.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    No it's not. It's more like a softer version of anti-slander than it is like they own your opinion. Are they going to send you a threatening letter if you don't like them?
  - philwelch 16y ago
    "Property", or "responsibility"?
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Is "attempting to influence it through their policies" equivalent to "treating it as their property"?
- dmn001 16y ago
  I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue. I still have the view though that if someone has the money they should be able to buy it and a lifetime ban is not really ideal. Also a CNN article I read recently means the limit of 2 isn't stopping the trade in Hong Kong: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/08/ipad.hong.kong.china.sales/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/08/ipad.hong.kong.china.sale...
  - pyre 16y ago
    > I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue. If a retailer is unable or unwilling to enter a market, why should they be able to artificially ban anyone in that market from obtaining their product? Take this outside of the context of Apple here. If Universal decides to release a DVD in the US, but wait 2 years to release that same DVD in the UK, should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace. If anything, Apple is losing that revenue because they are 'unable and/or unwilling to enter that market,' not because someone isn't in the store shopping for their iPad. The argument that Apple is losing money over this is like the argument that the media industries make when they claim that every download is a lost sale.
    - whatusername 16y ago
      You've never heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code I'm not saying it's right - just that it's not new.
      - pyre 16y ago
        That's exactly why I used that example. Plenty of people think that DVD region coding is unfair and wrong, so I don't understand how this is any different. Saying that this guy somehow 'wronged' Apple is like saying that someone who buys DVDs outside of their region code (and uses a region-free dvd player) is somehow 'wronging' the movie studios.
- poikjhgvfgbnm 16y ago
  You don't just buy an Apple iProduct - you embrace the Apple lifestyle. That's why iPads come with adoption certificates, simply handing over money for one would devalue the whole experience of transferring the love from Jobs to you.
  - rapind 16y ago
    I'm on my third mac (I just can't find a comparable product to a MacBook Pro), but the whole apple lifestyle stuff is a big turn off for me. If I could get a comparable laptop (obviously by my own preferences) then I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, just so I didn't have to feel like I was part of some Apple fanboy club.
    - wtallis 16y ago
      I'm pretty sure that the majority of Apple customers feel that way or at least aren't interested in any kind of "Apple lifestyle". The proportion of Apple customers who are true fanboys is probably no higher than the fraction of Dell customers who are gamers with too much money and completely unrealistic opinions about the relative merits of AMD vs Intel and Nvidia vs ATI. The stupid rich Apple fanboys get more disdain than the stupid rich gamers because the Apple fanboys are more ostentatious and the gamers [ab]use technical terminology that makes them sound less subjective.
    - alextingle 16y ago
      I gave up on my PowerBook 12" last year. It had pretty good software, but the hardware was really disappointing. I've bought a Lenovo Thinkpad, put Ubuntu on it and I'm very very happy.
    - roc 16y ago
      I've long told my friends that the single biggest drawback of Apple products is the supposed "lifestyle". The attitude? not my thing. The people in the stores? not my people. Even the places they locate the stores are not my kinda places. Unfortunately, they have great products I really enjoy and their service is phenomenal.
  - 16y ago
tedunangst 16y ago
Why they care: I was recently shopping for a camera. The one I wanted was supposed to retail for about $900. But it's new and popular, so it's selling for $1100 (or out of stock). I've decided that's too much, so I'm considering other options. If the only message I got was out of stock, I'd probably wait. But upon learning that the price is actually $1100, that triggered a different psychological response, and now I'm looking for something cheaper. Something from a different manufacturer. So sure, in the short term, they are selling all they can. But in the future, when they have more capacity, they just lost a sale.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  That only explains why companies want to limit the ability of customers to resell their product, not why companies should be allowed to do this.
  - codyrobbins 16y ago
    Are you serious? They don't need your permission to do this—it's their product, they can implement whatever sales policies they like. They don't have any responsibility to defend the practice, it's their prerogative. But even if it wasn't, they simply don't want middle men marking up their products and taking a cut, while at the same time depleting their in-store stock. I don't blame them.
    - fleitz 16y ago
      Apple doesn't want middle men marking up their product? If that is so then how come I can buy an Apple product from Best Buy for the same price as from the apple.com? Is Best Buy selling these items for the same price they paid for them? I believe Best Buy is what one would call a middle man.
      - a-priori 16y ago
        Or perhaps Apple marks up the online store similarly to the markup that retail stores do?
Perceval 16y ago
Think about it in terms of concert/sporting event ticket sales. Everyone hates scalpers. They aren't real fans, they're not going to go see the act/game. They know when all the ticket sales are going to be, since their entire life revolves around getting tickets, and they know all the pre-sales and other ways of snapping up tickets. They buy tickets in huge blocks when possible, use intermediaries and partners to buy more tickets to get around any limits. When you, the fan, get around to buying tickets for the event you find that they're all sold out already (except for the nosebleeds). But you can get tickets on Craigslist for 3x the face value of the ticket from some guy who bought several large blocks for the sole purpose of re-selling them with a huge markup. Maybe the venue shouldn't care if re-sellers are buying up all the tickets, but it sure makes for a shitty experience for their actual market (i.e. the people showing up for the event). It also limits the venue's ability to control supply and demand because they no longer have any direct say over the market price for their good/service. So both fans and the venues seem to be worse off, while the middle man makes a big profit by artificially restricting supply. The guy in the article exhibits the same type of buying behavior that a scalper would: buying more iPads than a normal individual would require and then reselling them at a markup. Apple doesn't have any way to tell that he's trying to extend their market abroad to people that can't purchase an iPad locally. But I'm pretty sure they have the same view toward a middleman that concert venues would. And the local customers trying to get an iPad when supplies are scarce are also going to be frustrated that one individual is making (effectively) block purchases. One of the cardinal rules of good business is to cut out the middleman. That seems to be what's going on here.
- tbrooks 16y ago
  I think the ticket analogy is a little loose. Once tickets are sold out, there are none left to buy but from the scalpers. Apple will make more iPads if they sell out. The supply is almost limitless.
  - SandB0x 16y ago
    "Extra dates added, by popular demand"
  - 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

It's common, but necessary? It's an attempt to avoid the effects of an actual free market by attempting to prevent secondary markets from emerging. An alternative would be to compete on a normal market basis, selling products to willing buyers for mutually agreed upon prices, without attempting to further restrict what they do with them after purchase.

philwelch 16y ago
The pricing of the product and whether or not the product is "locked down" are two totally separate issues. Even if retailers and manufacturers raised prices during supply pinches and the initial rush, that wouldn't mean the product would be any more or less locked down. As long as sales are made, any price is "mutually agreed upon". Manufacturers just choose to agree to a lower price than they could otherwise get away with, which causes shortages and rationing.
- _delirium 16y ago
  By "restrict what they do with them" I didn't mean the iPad's technological lock-down stuff, just the fact that Apple's attempting to stop resales, i.e. trying to control how people further down the supply chain dispose of the product.
lenley 16y ago
It's very difficult to pull of decent price discrimination in practice.

jraines 16y ago

It seems the outrage is mostly about the seemingly excessive punishment. After all, he wasn't sneaky. It's up to Apple to enforce the policy for normally purchasing customers. His behavior was no different than someone who was ignorant of the policy. [edit, ok, a little, but presumably the ignorant could innocently visit different stores, too] And then on top of that, they refuse to give further information that they obviously have. Lifetime limit? The policy says there is a limit on the number that customers can purchase, the number 2 clearly seems to mean "per customer" or "for now". Clearly the lifetime limit is not two. So what is it? Or is it just weasel words?

cakesy 16y ago
I don't see much excessive punishment, they did rough him up, take him out the back and break his fingers, or even march him out of the store. Also, like a lot of big companies, they tell there employees to not answer tricky questions, because they often get it wrong, or make up stuff. On top of that, the employees probably don't know much more.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
Clerk: Sorry, but you've violated our policy. Customer: What exactly is your policy? Clerk: I'm not allowed to tell you. Customer: Then how am I supposed to observe the policy? Clerk: I'm not allowed to tell you. Customer: ??? Clerk: I've said too much already. ------ ISPs are notorious for having similarly obscure bandwidth caps.

barrkel 16y ago

The price is artificially low for the demand. Fighting against this is essentially fighting against the free market. If you're a capitalist, or believe in free markets, there's plenty to be outraged by here.

philwelch 16y ago
It's not some kind of moral imperative that you have to raise prices to the prevailing market rate if you're selling electronics or baseball tickets.
- barrkel 16y ago
  But if you're a profit-oriented free market agent, and you see an arbitrage opportunity, would it be wrong to take advantage of it? Isn't objecting to arbitrage wrong? I don't see that the making of profit by buying low and selling high is wrong.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    It's not wrong, but it's not wrong for Apple to cut this guy off, either.
  - bena 16y ago
    But creating an arbitrage opportunity by buying all of the supply that would be readily available if you hadn't intervened is wrong. If there are 100 widgets and 200 people want widgets, it is wrong for a third party who has no particular desire for widgets to buy all 100 widgets and sell them for an insane markup. He changed a 50% deficiency of supply into a 100% supply, artificially reducing it. This allows him to artificially increase the price. All in all, this is why I'm hardly ever a first adopter. I let the sharks and the morons fight over the buggy 1st generation crap and then swing around when the 2nd or 3rd generation hardware hype isn't out of control.
    - eru 16y ago
      If you can pull off cornering a market, than you have earned your profit. It's very difficult in practise and people have probably lost more money than they won. From Wikipedia: "Although there have been many attempts to corner markets in everything from tin to cattle, to date very few of these attempts have ever succeeded; instead, most of these attempted corners have tended to break themselves spontaneously. The party attempting to corner a market can become very vulnerable due to the size of their position, especially if their attempt becomes widely known. If the rest of the market senses weakness, it may resist any attempt to artificially drive the market any further by actively taking opposing positions. When the price starts to move against the cornerer, they are in a very difficult position, as it is likely to be impossible to exit much of their position without catastrophically moving prices against themselves. In such a situation, many other parties will be able to profit from the cornerer's need to unwind their position." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market)

wrs 16y ago

Outrage? Author's comment: "I don't think that I was wronged at all. I'm not even upset, nor do I think I was complaining."

joezydeco 16y ago
Sure took a lot of pixels to not complain about it.
- wisty 16y ago
  Well, at least he warned others.
- Confusion 16y ago
  Yeah, because he was going through the trouble of relating a complete, nicely told, story. What's up with this Twitter attitude? "Bought iPads for others overseas; now banned from buying iPads as per Apple's policy" is the kind of story you like to read?
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    No, but that's because the story fundamentally isn't interesting. It's the epitome of dog-bites-man, and we're only hearing about it because Apple anti-fanboys are hyping it.
    - joezydeco 16y ago
      I was also being somewhat facetious. The article opens with this: I had planned on reviewing the iPad in my next post... Another iPad review from a random blogger? Really? This isn't a Twitter attitude, it's an attitude of "nobody really gives two cents about your opinion". And yet, here I am typing this. The internet is hard.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

>often in markets the retailer is unwilling or unable to enter for a variety of reasons If Joe Retailer can't or won't enter a particular market but Bill Reseller will, Joe selling products to Bill sounds like a pretty efficient solution to the problem of how to get the product into a market that wants to buy it.

dagw 16y ago
Joe might have long term strategic reasons to want to keep his product out of that particular market, especially if the product can be seen as a loss leader for other products. In that cases the efficient solution for Joe is to to everything he can to keep his product only in markets where he stands to make the most long term profit, even if it means sacrificing short term sales. In the real world you often have to think two three steps further than you had to do to pass econ 101.

elai 16y ago

I understand the policy, but they handled it fairly rudely.

biafra 16y ago

I think it's ok to limit how many iPads you may buy for the time period when they are scarce. But banning him from buying another iPad for _life_ ist just ridiculous.

sshconnection 16y ago

For the last month, droves of apple fanboys have been defending every ridiculous move by apple no matter how misguided it may be. What kind of doublethink are you people practicing? Developers arguing that we shouldn't be able to write software for an iPhone unless it was "originally coded" in objective-c? I'm waiting for people to start bashing net neutrality or spreading wholesale FUD about open source because it might somehow pose a threat to the Apple Experience. I'm typing this on a macbook pro, and I have an iPhone. For the last few years, I've enjoyed using apple products. I found that osx was a nice *nix development platform. Sadly, their recent decisions have been so disappointing to me that I've decided to stop supporting their platform. I've already ordered an android phone. My next laptop, like my current desktop, will be running linux. It's very bizarre to watch so many people who claim to support open software systems defending Job's every move. It seems like some strange form of Stockholm syndrome. As for the rest of you, I encourage you to join me in voicing your disappointment with your wallets.

arantius 16y ago

> Like it or not, in pretty much any retail environment, this practice is unacceptable. Why? Can you explain the rational reason why a retail store would want to keep someone from paying full price for their items?