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Their monthly salary is usually on top of other benefits such as subsidized/free accomodation in their capital, food and travel expenses coverage, and so on. Th

Their monthly salary is usually on top of other benefits such as subsidized/free accomodation in their capital, food and travel expenses coverage, and so on. They definitely can allow themselves a new Macbook if they wanted to buy it on their monthly salary. Most of the time they get that for free from extra allowances too.

pchangr 4y ago
I think they’re just making a point about purchasing power.
piva00 4y ago
You are right but completely missing the point. The case is not that the PM couldn't have access to a Macbook if they so wanted but that it'd take the head of government of a country a whole month of their take-home salary to afford one. It's quite absurd, not the accessibility for the PM but to give a hint to how the average person of said country would definitely be priced out.
- chii 4y ago
  But a mac air is a luxury item, and its pricing reflects that. I don't think it's absurd at all. A similarly capable laptop could be had for a much lower price, so people that complain they cannot get this luxury item for an "affordable" price just sounds entitled to me.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    I'm not asking for Apple to reduce prices - that's their prerogative. I'm simply pointing out the absurdy of the pricing in context of this news story about falling sales.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    This doesn't read like a complaint about the pricing per se. It's more like pointing out Apple's low sales might have something to do with their high pricing and then providing that the pricing is unattainable for laypeople by way of stating the single figurehead of a country will still be out a month's income if they want one.
    - s3p 4y ago
      It does read like a complaint about the pricing
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - spoiler 4y ago
    Some people use Macs for work. I guess you can think of it as a long-ish investment and get it on finance, but considering how quickly hardware becomes outdated in some industries where Macs are are either a technical or social must-have, the prices do seem absurd...
    - wincy 4y ago
      I bought it for my wife because she was constantly breaking the Linux laptop I put together for her. She’d have a billion tabs open and eventually the RAM would fill up and it’d crash and she was annoyed about this. I haven’t had to troubleshoot my wife’s MacBook Air in the two years she’s had it. She wants to write and watch movies, and the Mac just works for her. I use a 16GB M1 Air with 1TB hard drive myself and it does everything I want and I don’t have to worry with tinkering on it. I used to be really into tweaking performance on my desktop but it’s just not worth it anymore.
  - LeFantome 4y ago
    Not so much people asking to be given goods they cannot afford as it is pointing out the business implications of designing / selling devices that people cannot afford.
    - chii 4y ago
      > implications of designing / selling devices that people cannot afford. luxury items tend to be the first to suffer drops in sales in the face of a recession. I dont think it's there's any implication other than that apple's sales are going to drop. The point of the GP comment was to imply that the price is too high, and that it shouldn't have been, and the drop in sales was the fault of said high price. I'm countering it with the idea that as a luxury good, the drop in sales is totally expected in a recession.
  - altcognito 4y ago
    I would love to hear more macOS users admit that their equipment was a status indicator, overpriced for what it is. I’m sure apple is excited about cultivating this brand identity. If there is one way I can think that they could get away from the “Sony” or Nike model, it’s being seen as a luxury item, a tool of the select few, instead of just a high quality brand, that yes, might be a little more expensive. -- Just adding a bit that I'd prefer to be less sarcastic than I was in this comment: My point is that I like the Mac brand better as an bit more costly, but upscale, quality tool than a "luxury". Luxury implies that it is impractically expensive (which I think is what is being argued) Maybe it was just the choice of that word. I'm not sure they even really view themselves as prosumer, but it is a fine line.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yes, it is just a status symbol. It couldn’t have anything to do with its speed, 16 hour battery life, or it not sounding like a 747 the minute you open too many Chrome tabs.
    - piva00 4y ago
      I'd also love to hear how could people price in the value of the experience they get from using their device every single day. I say that as a former Mac/Apple hater, I used to think all the usual tropes: how overpriced it was for the configuration, how all Mac users were part of a cult, brainwashed for status, so on and so forth. Until I got a Mac for work, planning to just install Linux on it but after seeing some coworkers having headaches doing that I stuck with MacOS for a while and... I never left. I never had anything close to the issues I had when using Linux as a daily driver, I do believe Linux has got much better for desktop these days but I simply don't want to care about fixing my machine/OS when something inevitably goes awry as it's done multiple times in the past for me. Apple might not fix their issues as timely as I'd like sometimes but I've been on this boat for 10+ years and the amount of accumulated pain from using a Mac vs what I suffered on Linux/Windows-land machines before is not really comparable, at all, it's been orders of magnitude less painful to me. My experience is absolutely personal and anecdotal so I just want to disclaim that I'm not saying people who don't use/like Macs and Apple are wrong, or advocating for anyone to switch, etc. I don't buy into the Apple cult, if some other company creates a product that works better than what I have I will switch in an instant. I just don't think it's very clear when comparisons are made simply on tech specs rather than the experience as a whole. The thing is that right now my Macs have done everything I ever wanted from a desktop machine, very high reliability compared to any other option I've used in almost 3 decades on computers, so I stick with them. On my Mac I can do my job as a SWE, do my photography stuff, as well as my music production. And I never had more than a hiccup here and there from a major OS upgrade in 10+ years.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > mac air is a luxury item 8GB of Ram is luxury? Rolls Royce is luxury. Luxury means status. A gold plated car is luxury ( for some). It's a whole different league. Macbooks used to be premium - better performance, better experience. Limited storage is not premium. If Porshe releases a car with 30 horsepower, and asks for £100,000, we have a word for that. A joke.
    - detaro 4y ago
      A 30hp Ferrari for 100k would still be a luxury item, very much so, assuming there'd be people that want them (which there clearly are for macbooks). Luxury doesn't mean "the best" or even "good".
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - geodel 4y ago
      Calm down. Apple products are luxury for a lot of people in the world. One doesn't become arbiter of what is luxury or not all across just by looking some local things and coming up with quick-n-dirty definition of it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

pchangr 4y ago

I think they’re just making a point about purchasing power.

piva00 4y ago

You are right but completely missing the point. The case is not that the PM couldn't have access to a Macbook if they so wanted but that it'd take the head of government of a country a whole month of their take-home salary to afford one. It's quite absurd, not the accessibility for the PM but to give a hint to how the average person of said country would definitely be priced out.

chii 4y ago
But a mac air is a luxury item, and its pricing reflects that. I don't think it's absurd at all. A similarly capable laptop could be had for a much lower price, so people that complain they cannot get this luxury item for an "affordable" price just sounds entitled to me.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I'm not asking for Apple to reduce prices - that's their prerogative. I'm simply pointing out the absurdy of the pricing in context of this news story about falling sales.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  This doesn't read like a complaint about the pricing per se. It's more like pointing out Apple's low sales might have something to do with their high pricing and then providing that the pricing is unattainable for laypeople by way of stating the single figurehead of a country will still be out a month's income if they want one.
  - s3p 4y ago
    It does read like a complaint about the pricing
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- spoiler 4y ago
  Some people use Macs for work. I guess you can think of it as a long-ish investment and get it on finance, but considering how quickly hardware becomes outdated in some industries where Macs are are either a technical or social must-have, the prices do seem absurd...
  - wincy 4y ago
    I bought it for my wife because she was constantly breaking the Linux laptop I put together for her. She’d have a billion tabs open and eventually the RAM would fill up and it’d crash and she was annoyed about this. I haven’t had to troubleshoot my wife’s MacBook Air in the two years she’s had it. She wants to write and watch movies, and the Mac just works for her. I use a 16GB M1 Air with 1TB hard drive myself and it does everything I want and I don’t have to worry with tinkering on it. I used to be really into tweaking performance on my desktop but it’s just not worth it anymore.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  Not so much people asking to be given goods they cannot afford as it is pointing out the business implications of designing / selling devices that people cannot afford.
  - chii 4y ago
    > implications of designing / selling devices that people cannot afford. luxury items tend to be the first to suffer drops in sales in the face of a recession. I dont think it's there's any implication other than that apple's sales are going to drop. The point of the GP comment was to imply that the price is too high, and that it shouldn't have been, and the drop in sales was the fault of said high price. I'm countering it with the idea that as a luxury good, the drop in sales is totally expected in a recession.
- altcognito 4y ago
  I would love to hear more macOS users admit that their equipment was a status indicator, overpriced for what it is. I’m sure apple is excited about cultivating this brand identity. If there is one way I can think that they could get away from the “Sony” or Nike model, it’s being seen as a luxury item, a tool of the select few, instead of just a high quality brand, that yes, might be a little more expensive. -- Just adding a bit that I'd prefer to be less sarcastic than I was in this comment: My point is that I like the Mac brand better as an bit more costly, but upscale, quality tool than a "luxury". Luxury implies that it is impractically expensive (which I think is what is being argued) Maybe it was just the choice of that word. I'm not sure they even really view themselves as prosumer, but it is a fine line.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Yes, it is just a status symbol. It couldn’t have anything to do with its speed, 16 hour battery life, or it not sounding like a 747 the minute you open too many Chrome tabs.
  - piva00 4y ago
    I'd also love to hear how could people price in the value of the experience they get from using their device every single day. I say that as a former Mac/Apple hater, I used to think all the usual tropes: how overpriced it was for the configuration, how all Mac users were part of a cult, brainwashed for status, so on and so forth. Until I got a Mac for work, planning to just install Linux on it but after seeing some coworkers having headaches doing that I stuck with MacOS for a while and... I never left. I never had anything close to the issues I had when using Linux as a daily driver, I do believe Linux has got much better for desktop these days but I simply don't want to care about fixing my machine/OS when something inevitably goes awry as it's done multiple times in the past for me. Apple might not fix their issues as timely as I'd like sometimes but I've been on this boat for 10+ years and the amount of accumulated pain from using a Mac vs what I suffered on Linux/Windows-land machines before is not really comparable, at all, it's been orders of magnitude less painful to me. My experience is absolutely personal and anecdotal so I just want to disclaim that I'm not saying people who don't use/like Macs and Apple are wrong, or advocating for anyone to switch, etc. I don't buy into the Apple cult, if some other company creates a product that works better than what I have I will switch in an instant. I just don't think it's very clear when comparisons are made simply on tech specs rather than the experience as a whole. The thing is that right now my Macs have done everything I ever wanted from a desktop machine, very high reliability compared to any other option I've used in almost 3 decades on computers, so I stick with them. On my Mac I can do my job as a SWE, do my photography stuff, as well as my music production. And I never had more than a hiccup here and there from a major OS upgrade in 10+ years.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > mac air is a luxury item 8GB of Ram is luxury? Rolls Royce is luxury. Luxury means status. A gold plated car is luxury ( for some). It's a whole different league. Macbooks used to be premium - better performance, better experience. Limited storage is not premium. If Porshe releases a car with 30 horsepower, and asks for £100,000, we have a word for that. A joke.
  - detaro 4y ago
    A 30hp Ferrari for 100k would still be a luxury item, very much so, assuming there'd be people that want them (which there clearly are for macbooks). Luxury doesn't mean "the best" or even "good".
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - geodel 4y ago
    Calm down. Apple products are luxury for a lot of people in the world. One doesn't become arbiter of what is luxury or not all across just by looking some local things and coming up with quick-n-dirty definition of it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]