Posts by giovanni tiso
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
In other words, they got caught :-)
iSupply table for the iPad. Those margins, not too shabby eh?
-
iSupply did a study when the iPhone was released (I can't find it right now because it's buried amongst a million other iSupply releases on the same topic), and it found that the iPhone margins were astronomical. They also speculated that Apple could afford to slash prices in a matter of months, which Apple did - and they early adopters got pissed, as I recall.
-
Again, to me they're the same company.
(And it's a company I've bought a lot of products from, I should be clear about that.)
-
I just wanted to point out that it uses the same major manufacturers as everyone else does. It wasn't "caught" doing anything.
It was caught using the same slave labour as everybody else whilst making much more money per unit sold than anybody else. Given that the official excuse for the use of slave labour is that otherwise we can't compete, I call that being caught. But it should be quite clear I'm not condoning the behaviour of the others just because they make slightly less profit per unit sold. Again, to me they're the same company.
Wow, that's a bit unfair. I was just disagreeing with you.?
The bit about Apple suffering from inverted snobbery was a bit precious, you'll give me that.
-
We don't tend to have the same discussion about those companies and their products, even if we should.
That's crazy talk. Of course we do - to extrapolate the relevant link from my blog post linked to above, the case of Microsoft.
But that Apple should have got hammered when it had by far the largest margins than anybody else on its iPhones (and, before that, it's iPods and iPod Touches) is entirely appropriate. A company that sells and image, that sells you the Future, is the best case study to show that our future is actually the nightmare scenario of global capitalism in the present tense, for carriers of the wrong passports.
And that 20% figure is grotesque. Again, it's not that iPads etc. are made ethically. They're just made 20% less unethically, in the same factories! They command a higher price, so it's ethics for those who can afford it. You can say that this premium makes Apple better than the other companies if you like - I find that kind of thinking incredibly naive.
Are you bothered that Apple is singled out? Stop thinking of it as a separate entity. Microsoft, Nokia, Apple, etc. - think of them as the same company, selling different products to different demographics. The top end green products of this anonymous company carry a clean-conscience premium. And yes, they're made 20% less horrendously. So buy those if you can afford them, by all means. Just don't be precious about it.
But the manufacturing labour cost in all the above products remains very small.
Say, so long as it's so small, why not order Foxconn to pay its workers the average minimum wages of the countries in which those products are going to be sold? Just a thought.
-
but Jobs has touted sustainability as a priority to Apple shareholders, which seems notable.
Jobs knows it's the business savvy thing to do. I don't know if the iPad bill of materials has been analysed yet, but Apple used to make an absolute killing on the iPhone - its profit margins were sky high compared to the costs of the materials. So let's say the iPad is greener. It also costs a small fortune. Does Apple sacrifice profit in the tradeoff? I doubt it. Buying an iPad means also buying a lifestyle and an ethics and an experience. It's like buying a Prius. Sure, the Prius is better for the environment than some non-hybrid cars. And the iPad is probably better for the environment than a $800 netbook. But they exist in the same marketplace, and the Apple product is greener and the conditions in which it is produced are less awful only by comparison to the cheaper products, and for the benefit of those who can buy and sell ethical consumerism.
So no, I don't think it's a matter of inverted snobbery. Greenpeace focuses on Apple because Apple puts them on the front pages, sure, but also because Apple let itself be caught trying to cream even more profit than it already did by dealing with the kind of companies that it shouldn't have dealt with, considering how much it was selling its products for. I have zero sympathy for that.
-
for example, not shopping at JB Hi Fi (even if it is more convenient) and going somewhere where the workers are treated better
By all means, although I'm not sure that JB Hi Fi going under is going to do much good to those underpaid workers. Still, I no longer buy from Amazon for the same reasons. Ethical consumerism is still consumerism though - it really solves nothing. Recognising that the problems are much more deep-seated doesn't mean being resigned that they'll never be solved, either. It means looking at workers' and environmental struggles a little more broadly - which I personally find helpful.
-
We can only afford our lifestyle because of the outsourcing of jobs where unions aren't allowed to tread. Computers, cars, gadgets, clothes, food - not to mention our waste, including our recycling. Do you put your green box out with your plastics and your paper and so forth? It's shipped off to South East Asia so they get poisoned.
I'm not saying it's not terrifying and wrong. Nor am I saying that because it reaches into every aspect of our lives as consumers, it's a hopeless fight. But it's not just the gadgets.
(Although I did take a stab at examining the issues that pertain to them specifcally, and I agree that they are peculiar.)
-
[we know]
-
Yeah, about that... I read somewhere that the average life of an iPhone is a little shy of two years. Not because the machines malfunction, but rather because the people upgrade, and all power to them I suppose. It rather reminds me though of this conversation I had once with a Wellington acquaintance. Actually, it's a two parter. The first time he came over and spent much of the visit observing and coveting our 26 inch flat screen TV. The second time, two or three years later, he asked in mock disbelief why we still had the same TV. "They're so much cheaper these days!" he offered. To which I think I replied, "yeah, but mine's free".
So these things start steep and then come down in price, and when they do people buy another one because they're so much cheaper, yeah? Isn't it a little perverse, and one hell of a false economy? (And it's not an Apple thing, either, it's just that people are more frequently polled about their iPhone than anything else.)