There really are more important things to worry about, but since I’ve taken the topic to the extreme (for this blog anyway) I feel I need to respond to the indirect accusation that I’m a whiner and need to “get a pair”.
Look, I realize some things, especially electronic gadgets, can get cheaper over time. I remember low-end DVD players selling for $500 ten years ago. But usually this deflation is a process that takes years and is in response to mass production and new innovations in the base technology. When Apple dropped the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399 after only ten weeks, that was extreme to say the least. It really wouldn’t have bothered me to see them drop the price by, say, $ 50 or $100 by Christmas. But a 33% cut in 10 weeks in ridiculous. I don’t even have a problem with the cut per se, but rather what they were charging 10 weeks ago. That’s what pissed me off.
And no, I did not know that this would happen so quickly when I bought my phones. Frankly, anyone who paid that price knowing it would drop 33% in 10 weeks is, to put it kindly, a very silly person. I never would have done that. It never occurred to me that was even a small possibility. Call me stupid, but I defy you to give me other examples of this sort of thing happening to this extreme. That’s why I’m angry.
All that said, I will agree it is absolutely Apple’s right to do what they did. Free market and all that. However, I’m equally free to be upset about it. Freedom of speech and all that. And to the extent that such consumer uproars affect the market, all the better I say.
Look, I realize some things, especially electronic gadgets, can get cheaper over time. I remember low-end DVD players selling for $500 ten years ago. But usually this deflation is a process that takes years and is in response to mass production and new innovations in the base technology. When Apple dropped the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399 after only ten weeks, that was extreme to say the least. It really wouldn’t have bothered me to see them drop the price by, say, $ 50 or $100 by Christmas. But a 33% cut in 10 weeks in ridiculous. I don’t even have a problem with the cut per se, but rather what they were charging 10 weeks ago. That’s what pissed me off.
And no, I did not know that this would happen so quickly when I bought my phones. Frankly, anyone who paid that price knowing it would drop 33% in 10 weeks is, to put it kindly, a very silly person. I never would have done that. It never occurred to me that was even a small possibility. Call me stupid, but I defy you to give me other examples of this sort of thing happening to this extreme. That’s why I’m angry.
All that said, I will agree it is absolutely Apple’s right to do what they did. Free market and all that. However, I’m equally free to be upset about it. Freedom of speech and all that. And to the extent that such consumer uproars affect the market, all the better I say.
4 comments:
I don’t even have a problem with the cut per se, but rather what they were charging 10 weeks ago.
This is what I don't understand.
The $599 price point was acceptable then, or you wouldn't have stood in line. But now that the price has dropped, it's no longer acceptable and somehow Apple's fault that we paid that much.
Paying full price (or more) is part of the cachet of being an early adopter of anything.
Outside the black market, I put a certain trust in the pricing to be somewhat reflective of costs etc. Again, were this even close to normal business practice, I might have been forewarned and accepting of the outcome. As it is, I find it highly unusual. I’m not proposing legislation or legal sanction, just expressing that I , the consumer, felt ripped off now that I know the mark-up. If this is so common and to be expected, why are so many people up in arms about it? The fact is, while perfectly legal, it was shitty. Jobs pretty much admitted that.
Keep in mind, too, that there wasn’t any real point of reference here. The iPhone does a lot that no other product does so I think the assumption was we were paying for something that actually cost a lot to produce. When the price drops 33% overnight and is still profitable, that notion (trust, really) is called into question. Consumer pressure when there is a perceived wrong is also part of market forces and there's nothing wrong with that.
I waited hours in line to be one of the first people in town to buy the final edition of the Harry Potter series - Deathly Hallows.
I got home around one thirty in the morning, and read until sunrise. I then awoke at around ten, and read the entire day.
The next day, Sunday I read until I finished the book.
I spent Sunday evening in a state of Harry Potterness.
I had read three Harry Potter books, and went to the latest Harry Potter movie all in the course of a month.
The next day I went to work knowing that no one could ruin my experience, and found a cult like experience in the making.
People were either whispering about what they read, or what they believed they would read.
Harry Potter books were being traded around. Some were running out to buy the entire series of books.
Others were speed reading through older books just to read the final book.
AND WHY????????????????????????????????????
Because people are insane that's why!
You stood in line, paid you freaking money, gloated for weeks - even telling me I would not be allowed to touch your damned phone, but I was lucky because I could place a call to you and you would use it to answer my call.
You probably flashed it around work, and took it on vacation with you to California - setting it down, maybe even losing it so as to force others to find it for you.
All for the price of a weekend out on the town.
I'd say you got your money's worth.
And you still have the coolest phone there is.
If I were you, I'd be telling everyone how you got so much money to burn it doesn't matter that you got screwed.
JP
Oh yes,
And how do you think I feel?
Do you know what it's like to look at all those obsolete phones being offered to people who don't have AT&T?
Yes, I can get a Chocolate piece of crap, or a razor, another piece of crap - if only I sign up for two more years.
I have to wait until 2009 to get a phone I figure will be worth buy now.
If it doesn't have a easy to use intuitive touch based high resolution interface with lots of cool Internet linked features why in the hell would I buy it?
Why would a person buy a horse and buggy when they can buy a car?
No, I'm stuck until 2009 - until Verizon can offer the iPhone.
And that's what millions of frustrated non-iPhone users are feeling right now.
So consider yourself lucky.
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