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I agree completely. I'm always in the minority telling people not to get AppleCare unless having to replace their Mac would be financially disastrous. (In which
by orangecat 15y ago
I agree completely. I'm always in the minority telling people not to get AppleCare unless having to replace their Mac would be financially disastrous. (In which case they probably shouldn't be buying it in the first place).
- dreeves 15y agoHells yes. Applecare is ridiculous. Somehow their sales people are so good though that they make me feel like it's a good idea (and just a couple hundred more dollars when I'm already spending thousands!) until I snap myself out of it. It's mathematically impossible for it to be a good idea to buy this!
- ceejayoz 15y ago> It's mathematically impossible for it to be a good idea to buy this! No more than any other form of insurance. Insurance companies make a profit, but that hardly makes it a bad idea to buy insurance. I'd be rather screwed if my family were responsible for the seven figures of medical care we've incurred in the last two years.
- seabee 15y agoBut it would be wrong to suggest that people shouldn't place an upper bound on their spending because the average case is lower. The loss of a computer might not be financially disastrous. The loss of another gadget might not be, either. But if you get a bad roll and lose multiple things within a short period of time, do you think you can withstand it financially? That is the real question. Don't look at these things in isolation.
- dreeves 15y agoSo buy extended warranties on all your electronics in case everything breaks at once and you couldn't afford to replace them all? That's too far-fetched for me. I'd assume that you could scrape together enough money (especially with all the money you saved not buying extended warranties!) to replace the most critical things first and the rest later.
- seabee 15y agoYou're missing the point and attacking a strawman to boot. Nobody suggested you take out a warranty on things you can probably live without, like a toaster, iPod or TiVo. Other things like a washing machine, you might do, because losing access to it incurs extra costs: taking things to the laundrette, travel to friends, etc. (if you're in a rural area I hope you know people there). This is especially the case if it's work-related equipment. In the case of something that is too expensive to replace without insurance, you just decided that the cost of insurance is greater than the opportunity cost of using a cheaper/inferior good over the time period covered by the insurance. Do you really think that's true in all circumstances? What you should not do is look at insurance narrow-mindedly and declare it a great big scam because the mathematics works in their favour. Well, no shit. They are paid to remove risk, they can't do that if it's an unsustainable business. If you can operate on the same business model as them and make an amortised net profit, do that - but don't assume everyone else can.
- smokey_the_bear 15y agoI'm not so sure, largely because of Apple's overpriced accessories. The battery of a laptop is pretty much guaranteed to need to be replaced within three years, and the power cords on the pre-unibody macbook pros were guaranteed to fray at the connection point within a few months. I bought a used laptop that came with AppleCare, and got two replacement cords and one battery, which would have retailed over $300.
- Derbasti 15y agoAs for applecare, the argument actually makes sense. After all, the most you can lose is the cost of one computer. For health insurance though... You are not just betting a few thousand bucks. You are risking your life.