5 ms·

This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon: People can get absolutely furious when something is offered for sale that they don't personally want to buy. T

by jmull 3y ago

This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon: People can get absolutely furious when something is offered for sale that they don't personally want to buy. To me this attitude is bizarre, but apparently this is mortally offensive to some people.

rs999gti 3y ago
It's the power of Brand Loyalty.
vrosas 3y ago
It's more like, people complain that something you _are_ going to buy costs more than they want. Apple has had this exact pricing model for decades now. People are always complaining the base configuration (for macs, iphones, etc) are underpowered and they have to fork up the extra $$$ for the better specs but Apple knows they're going to do it anyway.
- martinald 3y ago
  I do feel it is starting to become a real joke now though which is affecting their brand. I think also over the lifetime of the M3 models it'll start to become a real issue for even 'basic' work as RAM usage continues to increase.
whatever1 3y ago
It is enraging because I know that not technical people will buy it and then after suffering 2 years they will seek for an upgrade, not knowing that this is just a memory issue. Which btw could be an easy and cheap upgrade, but no, with apple you have to toss the 1600 machine altogether. Similar to the situation where apple was downgrading the iphone cpu after a year to hide their faulty batteries.
- pythonaut_16 3y ago
  I know multiple people coming up on their 3rd year with an 8gb base-model Macbook Air with no complaints or thoughts of upgrading.
smnrchrds 3y ago
My problem with Apple devices are that: 1) The base configuration comes with insufficient resources (low memory, low disk space, till surprisingly recent past slow HDD instead of SSD), and 2) The upgrades are way too expensive compared to any other hardware manufacturer, meaning that 3) The advertised price is a lie! Almost no one should buy the base configuration. You see a device advertised as 1500$. You think "Sweet! That's the price I am willing to pay!". But then you go through the selection process and end up with a 2000$ minimum on the checkout page. Even though it's not the same, psychologically, it feels like when you try to get an AirBnB for 100$ a night for 3 night and end up seeing a price of 920$ in the checkout page instead of 300$. Apple is pricing necessities (like 16 GB of RAM) as luxuries, and people don't like that.
- jghn 3y ago
  I’ve been using an 8gb M1 Air for 3 years now. It’s fine for personal use, and there have been stretches where I needed to use it as a dev machine in a pinch. Not optimal but to say 16 is a necessity is an overstatement t
- aplummer 3y ago
  Insufficient? An 8gb ram MacBook crushes word, YouTube and browsing Facebook. That’s most people, I think your “almost no-one” is “most people”.
  - makomk 3y ago
    Someone who only cares about Word, YouTube and browsing Facebook also doesn't need a $1,600 laptop with an 8-core CPU and a chunky GPU, they could get by with something much less powerful and probably wouldn't even notice the difference - and if anything, having only 8 GB of RAM is more likely to cause performance problems than not having a fast CPU or GPU (the modern web and modern apps are pretty memory hungry especially if you open a lot of tabs).
  - StillBored 3y ago
    Which is an ipad use case, I think people aren't so offended by the air, which could be viewed as "ipad with keyboard" but by the macbook pro with 8G, because presumably a person using it for "pro" work would be doing some heavy lifting to justify the "pro" bit. But, I think pretty much everyone understands apple tends to have a social signaling aspect tied to it, too. This is why you see plenty of PowerPoint warriors/middle mgmt toting them around too, because "pro" even though their use case for the machine is frequently little more than light office work (ppt/word/excel). So, why not offer it with 8G, they get their social signalling for cheap, and everyone else gets to pay $$$$ for the real configuration.
rconti 3y ago
Who's furious? Seems like the negative views on this 8GB configuration are driving benchmarks like this, which in turn give the buyers the ammo they need to make a purchasing decision. In this case, a couple hundred bucks extra seems to make a world of difference in performance and therefore, more importantly, longevity of the machine. EDIT: Apparently from reading here, folks in the MacRumors comments are furious. Guess I'm glad I don't read the comments!
bakugo 3y ago
Sounds to me like you're interpreting simple criticism of a brand as "people getting furious and being mortally offended" because you're biased by your own brand loyalty. You're just going to have to accept that some people don't like your favorite brand's newest product, it's not the end of the world.
- pythonaut_16 3y ago
  This comment thread kinda proves the point though. Instead of discussing the merits of 8GB vs 16GB commenters are incredulous that Apple would even offer an 8GB laptop in 2023.
  - bakugo 3y ago
    There are no "merits" to selling an 8GB laptop for over $1000 in 2023. It's a scam, plain and simple.
afavour 3y ago
I dunno, I think it’s somewhat understandable for a tech crowd. When your relative buys an expensive 8GB laptop who are they going to complain to when it doesn’t do what they want? Their techie relative of course! I could, of course, handhold every family member buying hardware to make sure they get the right thing. I’d just rather not.
noman-land 3y ago
I think it's partly jealousy and partly a feeling of abuse. They want to want the laptop but Apple doesn't cater to them. In fact it feels like Apple is being extremely hostile to them by selling an amazing laptop only to laughably cripple the RAM and force people to upgrade for stupefying sums. It feels so rude. They don't have to do it but they do it because they can. I'm a Mac owner and I paid outrageous sums to upgrade the RAM and hard drive I hate Apple for it.
- SillyUsername 3y ago
  That's Stockholm Syndrome :tears:
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
throwaheyy 3y ago
You’re being shortsighted. Apple is the brand that many of us in the tech crowd have long recommended to our non-technical friends and relatives. You could pay a slightly premium price and expect a machine that is easy to understand, “just works” and most importantly: that you would get a fair few years’ worth of use out of for the extra upfront cost. Apple is undermining that by shipping 8GB and 256GB in the base configuration. They’re setting up a situation where the expected life of their computers is potentially shortened by unexpectedly-bloated future OS upgrades. Remember the crappy underspecced Celeron laptops that Walmart used to sell? That unsuspecting non-technical customers would shell out hundreds for, only to become unusable slow in only 1-2 years, meanwhile suffering through it that whole time? We recommended Apple to our friends and relatives precisely to avoid those kind of cheap and nasty predatory products, but now Apple is moving in that direction too. As someone (who is technically skilled) who has recommended Apple tech to my whole family (who are non-technical) with massively positive results after migrating from Windows PCs, yes that does anger me.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Similar issue with the 16GB (flash) iPad Mini, where iOS takes like 12GB of flash up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
SillyUsername 3y ago
I think its fanboi fever-ism that people find offensive which is not unlike religious beliefs about whose imaginary deities are better.
superkuh 3y ago
You're posting to a forum full of people who are the tech support for their families and friends that buy these terrible devices. Of course we dislike them. They cause needless trouble and work.

by jmull 3y ago

rs999gti 3y ago

It's the power of Brand Loyalty.

vrosas 3y ago

It's more like, people complain that something you _are_ going to buy costs more than they want. Apple has had this exact pricing model for decades now. People are always complaining the base configuration (for macs, iphones, etc) are underpowered and they have to fork up the extra $$$ for the better specs but Apple knows they're going to do it anyway.

martinald 3y ago
I do feel it is starting to become a real joke now though which is affecting their brand. I think also over the lifetime of the M3 models it'll start to become a real issue for even 'basic' work as RAM usage continues to increase.

whatever1 3y ago

It is enraging because I know that not technical people will buy it and then after suffering 2 years they will seek for an upgrade, not knowing that this is just a memory issue. Which btw could be an easy and cheap upgrade, but no, with apple you have to toss the 1600 machine altogether. Similar to the situation where apple was downgrading the iphone cpu after a year to hide their faulty batteries.

pythonaut_16 3y ago
I know multiple people coming up on their 3rd year with an 8gb base-model Macbook Air with no complaints or thoughts of upgrading.

smnrchrds 3y ago

My problem with Apple devices are that: 1) The base configuration comes with insufficient resources (low memory, low disk space, till surprisingly recent past slow HDD instead of SSD), and 2) The upgrades are way too expensive compared to any other hardware manufacturer, meaning that 3) The advertised price is a lie! Almost no one should buy the base configuration. You see a device advertised as 1500$. You think "Sweet! That's the price I am willing to pay!". But then you go through the selection process and end up with a 2000$ minimum on the checkout page. Even though it's not the same, psychologically, it feels like when you try to get an AirBnB for 100$ a night for 3 night and end up seeing a price of 920$ in the checkout page instead of 300$. Apple is pricing necessities (like 16 GB of RAM) as luxuries, and people don't like that.

jghn 3y ago
I’ve been using an 8gb M1 Air for 3 years now. It’s fine for personal use, and there have been stretches where I needed to use it as a dev machine in a pinch. Not optimal but to say 16 is a necessity is an overstatement t
aplummer 3y ago
Insufficient? An 8gb ram MacBook crushes word, YouTube and browsing Facebook. That’s most people, I think your “almost no-one” is “most people”.
- makomk 3y ago
  Someone who only cares about Word, YouTube and browsing Facebook also doesn't need a $1,600 laptop with an 8-core CPU and a chunky GPU, they could get by with something much less powerful and probably wouldn't even notice the difference - and if anything, having only 8 GB of RAM is more likely to cause performance problems than not having a fast CPU or GPU (the modern web and modern apps are pretty memory hungry especially if you open a lot of tabs).
- StillBored 3y ago
  Which is an ipad use case, I think people aren't so offended by the air, which could be viewed as "ipad with keyboard" but by the macbook pro with 8G, because presumably a person using it for "pro" work would be doing some heavy lifting to justify the "pro" bit. But, I think pretty much everyone understands apple tends to have a social signaling aspect tied to it, too. This is why you see plenty of PowerPoint warriors/middle mgmt toting them around too, because "pro" even though their use case for the machine is frequently little more than light office work (ppt/word/excel). So, why not offer it with 8G, they get their social signalling for cheap, and everyone else gets to pay $$$$ for the real configuration.

rconti 3y ago

Who's furious? Seems like the negative views on this 8GB configuration are driving benchmarks like this, which in turn give the buyers the ammo they need to make a purchasing decision. In this case, a couple hundred bucks extra seems to make a world of difference in performance and therefore, more importantly, longevity of the machine. EDIT: Apparently from reading here, folks in the MacRumors comments are furious. Guess I'm glad I don't read the comments!

bakugo 3y ago

Sounds to me like you're interpreting simple criticism of a brand as "people getting furious and being mortally offended" because you're biased by your own brand loyalty. You're just going to have to accept that some people don't like your favorite brand's newest product, it's not the end of the world.

pythonaut_16 3y ago
This comment thread kinda proves the point though. Instead of discussing the merits of 8GB vs 16GB commenters are incredulous that Apple would even offer an 8GB laptop in 2023.
- bakugo 3y ago
  There are no "merits" to selling an 8GB laptop for over $1000 in 2023. It's a scam, plain and simple.

afavour 3y ago

I dunno, I think it’s somewhat understandable for a tech crowd. When your relative buys an expensive 8GB laptop who are they going to complain to when it doesn’t do what they want? Their techie relative of course! I could, of course, handhold every family member buying hardware to make sure they get the right thing. I’d just rather not.

noman-land 3y ago

I think it's partly jealousy and partly a feeling of abuse. They want to want the laptop but Apple doesn't cater to them. In fact it feels like Apple is being extremely hostile to them by selling an amazing laptop only to laughably cripple the RAM and force people to upgrade for stupefying sums. It feels so rude. They don't have to do it but they do it because they can. I'm a Mac owner and I paid outrageous sums to upgrade the RAM and hard drive I hate Apple for it.

SillyUsername 3y ago
That's Stockholm Syndrome :tears:
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

throwaheyy 3y ago

You’re being shortsighted. Apple is the brand that many of us in the tech crowd have long recommended to our non-technical friends and relatives. You could pay a slightly premium price and expect a machine that is easy to understand, “just works” and most importantly: that you would get a fair few years’ worth of use out of for the extra upfront cost. Apple is undermining that by shipping 8GB and 256GB in the base configuration. They’re setting up a situation where the expected life of their computers is potentially shortened by unexpectedly-bloated future OS upgrades. Remember the crappy underspecced Celeron laptops that Walmart used to sell? That unsuspecting non-technical customers would shell out hundreds for, only to become unusable slow in only 1-2 years, meanwhile suffering through it that whole time? We recommended Apple to our friends and relatives precisely to avoid those kind of cheap and nasty predatory products, but now Apple is moving in that direction too. As someone (who is technically skilled) who has recommended Apple tech to my whole family (who are non-technical) with massively positive results after migrating from Windows PCs, yes that does anger me.

aidenn0 3y ago
Similar issue with the 16GB (flash) iPad Mini, where iOS takes like 12GB of flash up.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

SillyUsername 3y ago

I think its fanboi fever-ism that people find offensive which is not unlike religious beliefs about whose imaginary deities are better.

superkuh 3y ago

You're posting to a forum full of people who are the tech support for their families and friends that buy these terrible devices. Of course we dislike them. They cause needless trouble and work.