When I was working for the cableco some 10 odd years, we had free cable service, including pay channels and 13$ cable Internet as part of our benefits. Basically, a value of around 80$ per month. That's much more generous than this offer from Apple.
Using what metric? Simple monetary value? Cable television would have zero value for me, but I imagine your cable company saw that benefit like Apple does, in that it helps employees "drink the Kool-Aid" rather than aid in recruiting.
I doubt Apple has any trouble filling retail positions lately, so they could just as easily
not give any discounts (or give much smaller ones) and still have virtually the same quantity and quality of new hires.
I'm not in retail, and I'm paid relatively well, but in terms of incentives I get zip, nada, zilch where I work. To complain that a heavy discount on new computers isn't "generous" enough, especially in this economy, smacks of whining.