Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rna!marc
From: marc@rna.UUCP (Marc Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple Gets Greedier (LONG and angry)
Keywords: Apple, Mac, Prices, Rip-off
Message-ID: <247@rna.UUCP>
Date: 14 Sep 88 05:48:38 GMT
References: <1018@lakesys.UUCP> <68072@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: marc@rna.UUCP (Marc Johnson)
Distribution: na
Organization: Rockefeller University Neurobiology
Lines: 78

In article <68072@sun.uucp> swilson@sun.UUCP (Scott Wilson) writes:
]...	  This is America, remember, free enterprise and all
]that.  Apple can do what ever they like with their prices just as you
]can do whatever you like with regards to what you buy.  If you don't like
]the price don't buy it.  If enough people feel the same way it will hurt
]Apple and they will reconsider their pricing strategy.  Apple (like most
]companies) is in business to make money, not to be your buddy.
]
]Now I don't like to see prices go up either, but hey that's life.  Nobody's
]twisting my arm to buy any of this stuff.  Apple is within its rights to
]up the price and I am within mine not to buy.  It all comes down to is it
]worth it to pay the price.

It's this kind of thinking that must have allowed Apple to justify the price
increases.  The issue is far more complicated than Scott paints it.  Why does
he think people are so upset about this?  Because we can't just "jump ship!"
The problem is that, especially in the computer world, when you
buy a particular technology, you are making a committment ($, time, learning,
etc.) to that particular avenue.  Sure, if you think a Toyota is too expensive,
you can buy a Subaru next time.  That's easy.  Not so in the computer world.
Why all this massive emphasis on "compatibility" and "portability" and
"connectivity"?  This is THE vital area of development now.  A Sun person should
know this all too well!

Apple has been playing both sides of the
fence for a long time now - "the computer for the rest of us" - with an
(at least) implied promise that the Apple way of doing things would continue
to be made available to a body of folks who saw the limitations of the IBM
way of doing things.  This includes a lot of "low end" buyers who don't have
to answer to a boss who wants Big Blue on the desks in the office.  Apple
directly and indirectly courted the educational and "high tech" market, as well
as the graphic-intensive market, with a new approach.  Their success in this,
coupled with the IBM-cloners, helped keep IBM from running away with the PC
market (and running in the wrong direction).  It was kind of, "buy Apple and
we'll take care of you" (to some extent).  The comment about Apple not being
in business to be your buddy is certainly true, but they surely professed a
far more, shall we say, cooperative attitude.

Clearly, this has gone by the wayside.  Just to take one blatant example,
how is it that 4 or 5 other floppy drive makers can sell top-quality 3.5"
drives at 60-70% of Apple's price, just to take one blatant example?
Other posters have noted the strangely non-parallelism of the price increases,
as well as the increases in non-DRAM items.  This is no simple "pass-along."
As Scott noted, there is a big demand now for Apple products.
This is due in no small measure to the committment that many have made
to the Apple way of doing things.  We can't rush out and buy
a MacPlus clone to expand our Mac needs -- we have to buy Apple.
And Apple rewards our committment by sticking it to us to fill the coffers.
It's looking a lot like the old IBM closed-market thing.  Sure, we could
scrap Apple altogether and switch to IBM and MS Windows etc etc, but
our investment in and committment to the Apple "fork" makes that prohibitive
if not impossible.

All of the hand-waving mumbo-jumbo of another article in this group is total
bull.  Raise prices to cut the demand?  Baloney!  Raise prices to RIDE the
demand!  It's a game of chicken - how high can we raise the prices before
folks abandon ship?  I felt that even buying a MacPlus 2 years ago was
really stretching, and hard to justify, but I felt that the investment in
the Apple approach was worth it.  I know others had the same feeling.
Now we have lots of software demanding greater capacity and the SE suddenly
becomes the low-end machine you "have to have."  And waddyaknow, the SE
goes way up in price!!  This only enhances the (mis-)perception that the SE is
somehow significantly superior to the Plus.

Apple has had a loyal and largely supported user base,
but price increases like this reflect a growing disregard for that base, and
risks alienating them.  Hell, why not just shell out for a Sun workstation?
And, I heard you can buy a MicroVax real cheap.

This all leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth...

Marc Johnson
Rockefeller Univ.

marc%rna@rockefeller.edu (129.85.2.1)
rna!marc@rockvax.bitnet
...cmcl2!rna!marc
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