Technus

We've seen plenty of evidence that the current inflation is almost entirely driven by companies price gouging consumers.

And actually, the fact that the price hasn't increased is pretty obvious evidence of this.

Do you think, for one second, Apple would accept any appreciable hit to its profit margin if their costs had inflated 1:1 with consumer prices? Especially when they have a perfect excuse to blame a price increase on?

The phone may cost them a little more to make than last year, but I doubt it's that much.

There's tons of elasticity built into the pricing already so that carriers can offer discounts.

The point is kind of moot because the phone definitely comes with the cable: https://www.apple.com/iphone-16/specs/

The article is actually about the new AirPods. I was going entirely off the information in the comment I was replying to.

The thing is, the iPhone 14, 15 and 16 all have the same launch price: $799 US

Adjusted for inflation, the 14 and 15 may have cost more, but Apple is almost certainly making that money back somewhere else. Like, say, making people pay for accessories that used to be included?

And at the end of the day, the prices consumers pay for end products don't follow the exact same curve as the prices megacorporations pay for materials and labor. We've seen plenty of evidence that the current inflation is almost entirely driven by companies price gouging consumers. So it's not really reasonable to assume that Apple's costs have gone up 1:1 with consumer prices anyway.

But here's the question: does it cost Apple $20 to make a cable? I seriously doubt it. It probably costs them closer to 20 cents per cable. So in reality, they now make approximately $20 more from every sale than they did before.

Sure, not everyone is buying a cable with every phone. But cables get lost, they wear out, they get stolen by your kids to charge their iPhones because they broke theirs, they get chewed up by pets, etc.

And you can bet your ass that, just like any other high-margin item, the people in the Apple store are gonna be incentivized like hell to get every customer to buy a cable with their phone whether they really need it or not:

Do you have a charging cable?

Is it an Apple cable?

Are you sure you have one that's USB-C and supports USB Power Delivery?

And it's not worn out?

You say your dog chewed on it a little but it's mostly intact and still works?

Well, I'd recommend getting a new one anyway.

Yeah you can get your own if you want but it's best if you get an Apple cable.

OK great, that comes out to $820 total. And do you want to insure your phone for $5 a month?

It's fine if they reduce the price accordingly.

If it's still the same price after they take the cable out, it was never about reducing waste to begin with.

Knowing Apple, that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.

I feel like you either fear and/or despise generative AI, or you think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

There seems to be very little in-between.

Raise your hand if you think laying off employees en-masse right before an earnings call should be a crime punishable by death:

✋

^(Only somewhat kidding.)

Seriously though, this is is even extremely misleading to shareholders. It's blatant manipulation of the numbers, how is it not illegal?

Here it is, folks, case in fucking point.

Did I ask, at any point, for opinions on how I should be feeling about any of this? I don't think so.

In all fairness, she was pretty patient with me for a bit, but as I alluded to, I attempted to apply small course corrections when I should have tried a different course entirely. In reality, this was the cumulative effect of multiple different occasions.

See, my dumb ass didn't think it was an issue with what I was saying, but how I was saying it. So I figured it was just a matter of trying to be more tactful with my suggestions. Obviously, that wasn't it.

Sure, she could have been more mature and introspective about it, but so could I. So it's kind of a wash.

I can't really blame her because of the shit she was going through. There's a bit more context that I don't really want to get into on a public forum, but in hindsight her reaction is understandable.

Kinda hard not to blame myself when it was ultimately my fuck up, however. I'm still dealing with that over 4 years later.

Well, kind of the exact opposite of that. I realize that's meant to be satire, but that kind of attitude is what got me into trouble.

I left out the exact details for brevity and privacy, but it was a situation where there wasn't a simple answer. I just didn't have a good grasp of the concept of active listening.

I was trying to engage with what she was saying, because she had previously told me that it seemed like I didn't care about her problems. But I just wasn't saying the right things.

In reality, my previous approach had revolved around keeping my mouth shut because then there was no way I could say anything to fuck it up. But then, in large part thanks to my undiagnosed ADHD, I would tune out without realizing it.

So I engaged in the only way I knew how, by trying to rationalize her experiences when I should have been empathizing with them.

Here's another thing that I was just reminded of in this very thread, lmfao:

Men are expected to accept unsolicited advice at face value when they want to vent, because we're supposed to be the ones with all the answers, and if a man is complaining about a problem, then he's obviously just missing the answer.

This actually blew up my last relationship, right at the beginning of the pandemic, when my girlfriend at the time was stressed from being laid off and we weren't able to see each other due to the isolation orders.

She would try to vent to me about her problems, looking for support in a time of emotional vulnerability, and I, an inexperienced idiot just trying to be helpful, would suggest solutions that I thought she hadn't considered. If you can't guess exactly how that went, you've almost certainly never been in a serious relationship.

What made it worse is she would then say to stop mansplaining, which made me defensive because I thought she was tacitly accusing me of being intentionally misogynistic when I was honestly just trying to be helpful. At the time, I figured I just needed to adjust my approach a little bit, not completely change course. Unsurprisingly, that didn't work.

It was only in hindsight, some time after she had dumped my dumb ass, and I had blocked and deleted her number, that I was complaining to my friends and getting the exact same kind of thing back that I realized, "oh wow, I get it now, that is actually really fucking annoying and invalidating."

It was also around this time, while discussing my experiences with friends who have been diagnosed, that I realized that I might have ADHD. So that definitely hadn't helped.

In the extremely unlikely event you're reading this, K, I'm sorry. I figured out what I did wrong, just a little too late.

Yes, thank you, I never would have figured that out without your brilliant insight.

Unfortunately, because of the aforementioned probationary period at the start of any conversation, it can take some time before it becomes clear that the other person just isn't that interested.

Can I still be annoyed at my time and effort being wasted? Or is it just my fault for being a man on a dating app?

Exactly.