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Paul Buchheit reports via Common Dreams
An emotional response to any criticism of the Apple Corporation might be anticipated from the users of the company's powerful, practical, popular, and entertaining devices. Accolades to the company and a healthy profit are certainly well-deserved. But much-despised should be the theft from taxpayers and the exploitation of workers and customers, all cloaked within the image of an organization that seems to work magic on our behalf.
1. Apple Took Years of Public Research, Integrated the Results, and Packaged it as Their Own
2. Even After Taking Our Research, Apple Does Everything in its Power to Avoid Taxes
3. Overcharging Customers
The manufacturing cost of a 16 GB iPhone 6 is about $200, and with marketing it comes to about $288. But without an expensive phone contract with Verizon, AT&T, or one of the other wireless carriers, the cost to the customer is at least $650.
4. Underpaying and Mistreating Employees
5. Apple Has Figured Out How to Spend Most of its Untaxed Money on Itself
Apple's View:
The tax-avoiding, research-appropriating, cost-escalating, wage-minimizing, self-enriching Apple Corporation has, according to CEO Tim Cook,[1] a very strong moral compass.
[1] Link in article redirects.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Wednesday May 20 2015, @07:08AM
3. It's Apple's right to sell their products at a price they choose. It's your right to not buy them.
Just for fun I decided to search for Samsung's cost per phone. I found this article.
The 32-Gigabyte Galaxy S5, which is water resistant and features a heart-rate monitor and fingerprint scanner, costs an "astronomical" $256.52 to build, according to teardown analysis by IHS. The model, which was launched on Friday, is selling for around $650 off-contract in the U.S. This is well above $236 required to build its predecessor and $207 for the iPhone 5S. It contrasts even more starkly with smartphones at the lower end of the cost spectrum, such as the ZTE U793, which has a materials bill of less than $35, according to the market research firm.
So, yeah, apparently the threshold for gouging somebody for a $650 product is somewhere around $256.52. I'm not even going to bother checking on the rest of the points, and I'm certainly not feeding ad-revenue to the mindless blogger who's obviously angling for home page on Slashdot by clicking on his link.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:18AM
So, yeah, apparently the threshold for gouging somebody for a $650 product is somewhere around $256.52.
Or Samsung is also gouging and the comparison means nothing.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:53PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:26PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:45PM
Who said anything about free development or R&D? So how many hundred million do you suppose that cost?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:15PM
Samsung and Apple are a bunch of beginners.
I've spent ten years in an industry where the sales price is typically 5x BOM cost. Really. Our low-volume high-tech projects didn't pop out of thin air, and we weren't exactly rolling in millions.
Margin over BOM is arbitrary. Don't like Apple's? I've never bought any of their products, but I'm not blaming them for charging as much as the market will bear.
The whole international tax evasion book is common to every major corp out there, and someone should put a stop to it. The one reason most people could agree on, even if they don't agree on tax levels, is that it distorts competition with the smaller domestic players.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:48PM
There are plenty of places where 5x BOM may be justifiable. It depends a lot on volume. However, the volume of consumer electronics gives a lot more units to amortize the development cost over.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Wednesday May 20 2015, @07:13PM
Isn't a very large markup for retail distribution fairly common though? The phones are actually moved by retail infrastructure for the most part.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 21 2015, @12:09AM
There is often a significant retail markup. Sometimes a truly crazy one (and perhaps it's time for people to realize just how much).
Of course, with Apple having it's own stores, it should be able to do better than that and still make a killing.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:30AM
That's called 100% profit. And it makes sense.