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Devil’s advocate— 1.25gb additional storage for 2500 songs isn’t really with the effort to scam people, particularly when you’re already one of the most profit

Devil’s advocate— 1.25gb additional storage for 2500 songs isn’t really with the effort to scam people, particularly when you’re already one of the most profitable companies in the world

crossroadsguy 4y ago
The other advocate - that’s exactly how they’re one of the most profitable company in the world. Fleecing customer - by making them buy chargers, earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other), extra storage, open repair hostile devices. List is quite long really. Besides that’s not the only place they eat storage. Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  > by making them buy chargers. I'm still using the charger I got with my 2008 (pre-unibody) MacBook Pro for my 2014 MacBook Pro, which is perfectly operational in 2021. I'm using a Spigen 48W USB-C + USB-A charger (and a 60W, 2m Baseus USB-C to USB-C cable) to charge my Macbook Air M1 2020. I'm using a Belkin wireless charging mat for iPhone X. So, no. > earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other) Making rugged plastics requires a lot of nasty chemicals. Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. Also none of my Apple devices' cables have frayed (incl. a 30 pin connector cable for my now lost iPod Nano 2G). How come? > extra storage I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck, and even I can't fill it up with normal usage. > Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening. System preferences -> iCloud provides pretty good rundown of which application is saving what, including the ones you can't see in your drives (i.e. game saves, application stuff, whatnot). So while Apple is not the best company out there, it's not that worse either. P.S.: Repairability is a problem. I have nothing to say about that, but at least battery change program is very good. They've even found and changed some damaged parts in my phone, for free, when I sent it in just for a battery change.
  - Mogzol 4y ago
    For chargers I believe they're referring to the fact that apple stopped including chargers with new iphones. > Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. In my experience apple cables are both nasty and less durable than most other cables I own. I have multiple old 30 pin cables that are frayed at the connector, my old ipod headphones had electrical tape on the cable where the rubber was breaking, and all my apple cables are a gross yellow color, while similarly old non-apple cables I own are all still perfectly white. > I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck It's average at best. It's the same price as google for monthly payments, but google is cheaper if you pay yearly.
jehb 4y ago
Probably true. I'd argue, though, in my experience working at a large tech company, the impact of a particular decision on the company's overall bottom line rarely comes into play for a decision like this. Instead, it's a mid-level manager who has been given a goal to increase a particular number, and will be rewarded based on quarterly performance against said arbitrary number. Which manager put in their OKRs for the year to grow usage of Apple's Music Library using a primary metric of total storage consumed? Now, they didn't necessarily cause the insertion of blank space into the files, but they'll be damned if they let some engineer make a change that makes it significantly harder to hit their growth goal for the year. Organizations don't cause things to be the way what they are: the dynamics between people inside of organizations cause things to be the way that they are.
- travisgriggs 4y ago
  Never attribute to malice that which you can attribute to incompetence.
  - cedilla 4y ago
    That's a good maxim for dealing with people you meet in real life. It's a useless maxim for dealing with trillion dollar multinationals.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      I'd say "dangerous" more than "useless." Big companies have plenty of incompetence to go around, but they also have plenty of malice disguised as incompetence, because children learn how to play dumb before they can talk and don't get worse at it when they grow up to become megacorp employees.
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      Having briefly worked (as a grunt with no visibility into exec decisions) in the maelstrom that is apple, I think the only sinister thing that could be happening is no one has an incentive to fix things like this, they only get exposure / promotions on shipping new features or large quality bugs. And so if they weren't bothered by it, and no execs we're bothered by it, it would just go unfixed.
nemacol 4y ago
Sure this 1.25gb:2500files is not massive - But if this little conspiracy theory is true it is easy to imagine them doing this sort of file padding in other systems as well. A little bit here and there adds up quick. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." Personally, I think it is likely the padding was created for future use. Maybe tagging or some other meta data.
- wbear 4y ago
  They explain what the padding was used for and why it was initially introduced in the article. This isn't something that needs to be theorized on.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    The article is only guessing at what 99% of the padding is there for.

Devil’s advocate— 1.25gb additional storage for 2500 songs isn’t really with the effort to scam people, particularly when you’re already one of the most profitable companies in the world

crossroadsguy 4y ago

The other advocate - that’s exactly how they’re one of the most profitable company in the world. Fleecing customer - by making them buy chargers, earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other), extra storage, open repair hostile devices. List is quite long really. Besides that’s not the only place they eat storage. Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening.

bayindirh 4y ago
> by making them buy chargers. I'm still using the charger I got with my 2008 (pre-unibody) MacBook Pro for my 2014 MacBook Pro, which is perfectly operational in 2021. I'm using a Spigen 48W USB-C + USB-A charger (and a 60W, 2m Baseus USB-C to USB-C cable) to charge my Macbook Air M1 2020. I'm using a Belkin wireless charging mat for iPhone X. So, no. > earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other) Making rugged plastics requires a lot of nasty chemicals. Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. Also none of my Apple devices' cables have frayed (incl. a 30 pin connector cable for my now lost iPod Nano 2G). How come? > extra storage I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck, and even I can't fill it up with normal usage. > Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening. System preferences -> iCloud provides pretty good rundown of which application is saving what, including the ones you can't see in your drives (i.e. game saves, application stuff, whatnot). So while Apple is not the best company out there, it's not that worse either. P.S.: Repairability is a problem. I have nothing to say about that, but at least battery change program is very good. They've even found and changed some damaged parts in my phone, for free, when I sent it in just for a battery change.
- Mogzol 4y ago
  For chargers I believe they're referring to the fact that apple stopped including chargers with new iphones. > Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. In my experience apple cables are both nasty and less durable than most other cables I own. I have multiple old 30 pin cables that are frayed at the connector, my old ipod headphones had electrical tape on the cable where the rubber was breaking, and all my apple cables are a gross yellow color, while similarly old non-apple cables I own are all still perfectly white. > I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck It's average at best. It's the same price as google for monthly payments, but google is cheaper if you pay yearly.

jehb 4y ago

Probably true. I'd argue, though, in my experience working at a large tech company, the impact of a particular decision on the company's overall bottom line rarely comes into play for a decision like this. Instead, it's a mid-level manager who has been given a goal to increase a particular number, and will be rewarded based on quarterly performance against said arbitrary number. Which manager put in their OKRs for the year to grow usage of Apple's Music Library using a primary metric of total storage consumed? Now, they didn't necessarily cause the insertion of blank space into the files, but they'll be damned if they let some engineer make a change that makes it significantly harder to hit their growth goal for the year. Organizations don't cause things to be the way what they are: the dynamics between people inside of organizations cause things to be the way that they are.

travisgriggs 4y ago
Never attribute to malice that which you can attribute to incompetence.
- cedilla 4y ago
  That's a good maxim for dealing with people you meet in real life. It's a useless maxim for dealing with trillion dollar multinationals.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    I'd say "dangerous" more than "useless." Big companies have plenty of incompetence to go around, but they also have plenty of malice disguised as incompetence, because children learn how to play dumb before they can talk and don't get worse at it when they grow up to become megacorp employees.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    Having briefly worked (as a grunt with no visibility into exec decisions) in the maelstrom that is apple, I think the only sinister thing that could be happening is no one has an incentive to fix things like this, they only get exposure / promotions on shipping new features or large quality bugs. And so if they weren't bothered by it, and no execs we're bothered by it, it would just go unfixed.

nemacol 4y ago

Sure this 1.25gb:2500files is not massive - But if this little conspiracy theory is true it is easy to imagine them doing this sort of file padding in other systems as well. A little bit here and there adds up quick. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." Personally, I think it is likely the padding was created for future use. Maybe tagging or some other meta data.

wbear 4y ago
They explain what the padding was used for and why it was initially introduced in the article. This isn't something that needs to be theorized on.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  The article is only guessing at what 99% of the padding is there for.