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Good luck! People have been trying to shame Apple for their premium pricing since the day they started selling computers, and it has never done a thing to chang

by dahart 3y ago

Good luck! People have been trying to shame Apple for their premium pricing since the day they started selling computers, and it has never done a thing to change their strategy nor sales. I think the issue is that a lot of tech people don’t fully understand what Apple is selling, what value is there, and why it appeals to so many consumers, despite whatever reasons we think we have. Nobody needs to prove you wrong, because most consumers do not know and do not care what germanium and plan9 are. Most consumers do not want to mod their phone or plug it into a keyboard & mouse, heck most programmers don’t even want that. Framing it as greed and lack of innovation seems like a not well thought out argument. Which companies are you buying tech from that aren’t aiming for a profit, and wouldn’t change more if they could? As a dev I feel like I’ve been forced out of the Apple ecosystem, and I’m having a hard time being a fan these days, but I wouldn’t dare claim they’re not innovating. The M-series is a massive innovation and challenging everyone, and it follows behind literally world-changing innovations like iphone. For its time, OSX was an innovative successor to unix built on unix. They have a long list and a solid history of innovation that continues to this day, despite always having had seemingly high prices on RAM, so let’s look for a better argument why they should offer it for less.

rudolph9 3y ago
I think the shame is more around calling it a “MacBook PRO” and getting people to pay premium for something that is clearly not to their own high standards and carefully curated image for the “PRO” line of a product. It’s like in the 90s when the base ford mustang became a poorly made vehicle with little power that looked like a sports car but really they selling out and taking advantage of their customers. I would have more respect for Apple if they just charged $200 more for the base and put 16GB of ram it instead passing off machines with insufficient amount of ram as a premium model of their devices.
webmobdev 3y ago
> ... it has never done a thing to change their strategy nor sales. Look up their Mac sales figure - it's down. And I do believe it is because consumers aren't stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs. The Gaslighting is also high with Apple claiming that their "8GB equals 16GB" because they are Apple: > Comparing our memory to other system's memory actually isn't equivalent, because of the fact that we have such an efficient use of memory, and we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture. Actually, 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16GB on other systems. We just happen to be able to use it much more efficiently. - https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/08/8gb-ram-m3-macbook-pro-like-16-gb-pc/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/08/8gb-ram-m3-macbook-pro-...
- devilbunny 3y ago
  > And I do believe it is because consumers aren't stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs I guess this is a factor, but the main reason I haven't bought a new Mac is that they quit making the 27" iMac. Turning that beautiful screen into a paperweight or strictly-retro computer, only to turn around and buy a Mini and Studio Display, seems silly. OpenCore Legacy Patcher has kept me up-to-date so far, but there's an end on it. It doesn't help that my office is part of the "fancy" part of the house and so having exactly one cable (power) running into the computer is a nontrivial aesthetic benefit. It really does look sleeker, because it is.
  - musicale 3y ago
    Hopefully they'll come out with a 32" 6K iMac with Target Display Mode. ;-)
- rewmie 3y ago
  > (...) and we have a unified memory architecture. If Apple laptops have to use their system memory for their graphics stuff, doesn't this mean that their 8GB of RAM leaves even less memory available for applications? I mean, even the cheapest graphics cards out there ship with a few GB of dedicated memory.
- dahart 3y ago
  > Look up their Mac sales figure - it’s down. And I do believe it is because consumers aren’t stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs. Mac isn’t the only product they sell where the storage prices are higher than the alternatives and higher than the cost of the underlying hardware. All of Apple’s products come with SSD and RAM upgrades that are above market rates and above the competition. I don’t think consumers are stupid either, I think they know the storage upgrades are marked up, and still buy Apple products, for other reasons. I bought Apple laptops and was happy about them despite their cost - they were truly great machines and outshined the cheaper non-Apple laptops I’ve had. Anyway, Mac sales have been down for a while because what would have been laptop and desktop sales are being now replaced with tablets and phones. Apple’s strategy hasn’t changed yet, and their overall sales and revenue on premium priced products haven’t show any sign of downturn yet.
rewmie 3y ago
> (...) for their premium pricing (...) That's a creative euphemism for price gouging.
- dahart 3y ago
  Your framing is not accurate. Apple is capitalist, using the free market, and profiteering, sure, but price gouging is “distinguished by being short-term and localized and by being restricted to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and equipment needed to preserve life and property.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
  - rewmie 3y ago
    I think you tried rather desperate to handwave over the fact that Apple price-gouges their laptops. Their entry-level prices for anaemic 8GB laptops to the small fortunes they charge to update (doesn't even count as an upgrade) their RAM beyond 8GB is nothing but price gouging. You can't hide the fact that Apple charges more for 16GB of RAM than what it costs to buy a full blown PC with 16GB of RAM.
    - dahart 3y ago
      It seems like you must have misread or misunderstood what I said. I explicitly acknowledged multiple times that their RAM & storage prices are higher than market rates. You are still misusing the phrase ‘price gouging’ according to Wikipedia’s definition. There are other common phrases for charging higher than market rates, such as profiteering. That’s fine, you call it what you want, but FWIW the result is you are adding negative spin while accusing me of positive spin.

by dahart 3y ago

rudolph9 3y ago

I think the shame is more around calling it a “MacBook PRO” and getting people to pay premium for something that is clearly not to their own high standards and carefully curated image for the “PRO” line of a product. It’s like in the 90s when the base ford mustang became a poorly made vehicle with little power that looked like a sports car but really they selling out and taking advantage of their customers. I would have more respect for Apple if they just charged $200 more for the base and put 16GB of ram it instead passing off machines with insufficient amount of ram as a premium model of their devices.

webmobdev 3y ago

> ... it has never done a thing to change their strategy nor sales. Look up their Mac sales figure - it's down. And I do believe it is because consumers aren't stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs. The Gaslighting is also high with Apple claiming that their "8GB equals 16GB" because they are Apple: > Comparing our memory to other system's memory actually isn't equivalent, because of the fact that we have such an efficient use of memory, and we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture. Actually, 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16GB on other systems. We just happen to be able to use it much more efficiently. - https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/08/8gb-ram-m3-macbook-pro-like-16-gb-pc/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/08/8gb-ram-m3-macbook-pro-...

devilbunny 3y ago
> And I do believe it is because consumers aren't stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs I guess this is a factor, but the main reason I haven't bought a new Mac is that they quit making the 27" iMac. Turning that beautiful screen into a paperweight or strictly-retro computer, only to turn around and buy a Mini and Studio Display, seems silly. OpenCore Legacy Patcher has kept me up-to-date so far, but there's an end on it. It doesn't help that my office is part of the "fancy" part of the house and so having exactly one cable (power) running into the computer is a nontrivial aesthetic benefit. It really does look sleeker, because it is.
- musicale 3y ago
  Hopefully they'll come out with a 32" 6K iMac with Target Display Mode. ;-)
rewmie 3y ago
> (...) and we have a unified memory architecture. If Apple laptops have to use their system memory for their graphics stuff, doesn't this mean that their 8GB of RAM leaves even less memory available for applications? I mean, even the cheapest graphics cards out there ship with a few GB of dedicated memory.
dahart 3y ago
> Look up their Mac sales figure - it’s down. And I do believe it is because consumers aren’t stupid and recognize that the new Macs have planned obsolescence built-in with their soldered RAM and SSDs. Mac isn’t the only product they sell where the storage prices are higher than the alternatives and higher than the cost of the underlying hardware. All of Apple’s products come with SSD and RAM upgrades that are above market rates and above the competition. I don’t think consumers are stupid either, I think they know the storage upgrades are marked up, and still buy Apple products, for other reasons. I bought Apple laptops and was happy about them despite their cost - they were truly great machines and outshined the cheaper non-Apple laptops I’ve had. Anyway, Mac sales have been down for a while because what would have been laptop and desktop sales are being now replaced with tablets and phones. Apple’s strategy hasn’t changed yet, and their overall sales and revenue on premium priced products haven’t show any sign of downturn yet.

rewmie 3y ago

> (...) for their premium pricing (...) That's a creative euphemism for price gouging.

dahart 3y ago
Your framing is not accurate. Apple is capitalist, using the free market, and profiteering, sure, but price gouging is “distinguished by being short-term and localized and by being restricted to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and equipment needed to preserve life and property.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
- rewmie 3y ago
  I think you tried rather desperate to handwave over the fact that Apple price-gouges their laptops. Their entry-level prices for anaemic 8GB laptops to the small fortunes they charge to update (doesn't even count as an upgrade) their RAM beyond 8GB is nothing but price gouging. You can't hide the fact that Apple charges more for 16GB of RAM than what it costs to buy a full blown PC with 16GB of RAM.
  - dahart 3y ago
    It seems like you must have misread or misunderstood what I said. I explicitly acknowledged multiple times that their RAM & storage prices are higher than market rates. You are still misusing the phrase ‘price gouging’ according to Wikipedia’s definition. There are other common phrases for charging higher than market rates, such as profiteering. That’s fine, you call it what you want, but FWIW the result is you are adding negative spin while accusing me of positive spin.