iTunes Store Now Accepting Donations for Superstorm Sandy Relief

Zunjine said:

Q2: What do you call the provision of free fundraising services? Many large organisations do the majority of their good work through donating skills and resources.

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What "services" are you talking about? Putting up a generic website that was worth half a day's job? This campaign costs them close to ZERO, but apparently you and a lot of others here still think it's a noble, grand - even generous - gesture. Mission accomplished.

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gnasher729 said:

Wait a second. Apple made a lot of profit for example in the UK. Why on earth do you think the US treasury has any rights to taxes on those profits? Clearly those taxes should go to the UK.

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Oh please, get informed.
Nearly every country in the world taxes people and corporations based on where they have put up their tents. Apple is a US company and when cash flows into their US pockets, they get taxed by the US treasury. Period.
Also they wouldn't get taxed twice. They'd just have to pay to difference between the foreign corporate taxes (which are a lot lower in places like Ireland, which now has to be bailed out by he rest of Europe) and the US tax.

It's the law. Don't like it, move to another country.

Moshe1010 said:

Apple donates a lot, you just don't know about it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/apple-charity-donation_n_1253185.html

This is one example. I'm sure they won't take a single penny from our donations and probably donate some from their own.

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It's similar to the situation concerning the late George Steinbrenner, former owner of the New York Yankees. He was an extremely charitable man, he just never did it for the press. He did it because he wanted to help people, not to get attention. Maybe that's what Apple does.

Speedy2 said:

What "services" are you talking about? Putting up a generic website that was worth half a day's job? This campaign costs them close to ZERO, but apparently you and a lot of others here still think it's a noble, grand - even generous - gesture. Mission accomplished.

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If you can put up that website with half a day of work, then you are hugely underpaid, no matter what your salary is.

As others have said, Apple donated:

1. The cost of setting up this site, which is just _slightly_ more than half a day of work. Especially since there is payment processing involved, which needs to be 100% bullet proof.

2. Cost of running the website, which is not zero.

3. Cost of payment processing, which can be a significant amount of money.

4. Cost of donations made with gift cards, where Apple doesn't actually get the full amount of the gift card, and unlike buying apps or music has to pay the difference out of its own pocket.

5. Making available this way of donating to several hundred million of its customers.

6. Showing this donation page to people who most likely wanted to buy music, videos, or books, and who may very well decide to not buy the music, video or books, but donate instead. So every donation on this page is quite likely to be lost business for Apple.

No donation. I believe the US has enough money from the tax payers. The president has to take care of all that.

If he ha to use the army he can do it to place generators, remove rubble and so on. The resources are there, plenty of them.

RVdave said:

He was probably right. Growing a company and it's payroll is probably the greatest contribution a company can make to society, because that money eventually benefits us all. I'll let others argue how much more is appropriate.

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Well I completely and utterly disagree with that way of thinking, and I actually personally find it quite sickening. A growth of a company will in no way help the people in need.

It would be nice if Apple matched your donation.

It would be a nice start on the PR path that ends with them bringing the jobs back to the US from China. Sure the devices would cost a little more but the warm feel good factor glow that its Designed AND Made in the USA would offset that.

Makes you proud to be American, you don't just make Patriot missiles n stuff.

To those that hate Apple for whatever they do there are alternatives to giving as people mentioned, but that's not the reason they post messages here. The reason they do that is to get a rise out of people because it gives them some level of satisfaction or a sense of accomplishment.

Apple, Amazon, others have links on their sites to contribute to Sandy relief efforts if you choose to. Ebay supposedly does as well. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Visa and others are donating and doing various things to match funds, donate through ATMs, etc. Cellphone companies allow texts to charge a donation to your account.

Do they have to do it? No.

Do they do it for purely altruistic purposes? Depends on your views of their motives, we can only speculate one way or the other.

Is it more work than doing nothing? Yes.

No amount of reasonable or cheerleader responses to the trolls will change their ways. It's best to ignore their blatant attempts at just stirring things up, maybe they are having a really rough day in real life and need to vent too.

To those affected by the storm I wish you a speedy recovery and return to normalcy!

Speedy2 said:

If you think that the vast majority of people in the USA are NOT rich compared to Haiti, then you have no clue whatsoever.

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And that's who's fault exactly? Americas? Oh yes, Apple's fault of course.

wrkactjob said:

It would be nice if Apple matched your donation.

It would be a nice start on the PR path that ends with them bringing the jobs back to the US from China. Sure the devices would cost a little more but the warm feel good factor glow that its Designed AND Made in the USA would offset that.

Makes you proud to be American, you don't just make Patriot missiles n stuff.

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Yea but im sure most of Apple sales are overseas, they wont care one bit if its made in the USA. USA manufacturing doesn't have a good reputation like Japan.

no matching program ?

meaning you donate $5 and apple also gives $5 ????

Why not go to you local Red Cross and donate instead of giving some greedy companies your money to do the donation for you. I live in NY area and people here do not need donations.

So Apple makes it easy for people to donate to the relief fund, and within the first 5 comments people are hating?

It's times like these that I wish the Internet had never been created.

Who gives a **** why Apple did it? All I know is that I was able to donate by typing in my iTunes password. That's convenient and I appreciate them doing it. If they have some ulterior motive - I'm sure the most valuable company in the world puts a priority on fleecing those who donate to charity - so be it.

MultiMediaWill said:

The awkward moment when Apple has billions of liquid dollars and will not donate anything. Hypocrisy at its finest.

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Well said!

rei101 said:

No donation. I believe the US has enough money from the tax payers. The president has to take care of all that.

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Wow, this world really is going to ****.

What the hell is the matter with people?

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sc4rf4c3 said:

Why not go to you local Red Cross and donate instead of giving some greedy companies your money to do the donation for you. I live in NY area and people here do not need donations.

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Wow, it's so wonderful that MacRumors has a spokesperson for all 20+ million people in the New York area!

Thank you for performing the legwork of hunting down every resident and confirming that they do not need any donations!

comatose81 said:

Wow, this world really is going to ****.

What the hell is the matter with people?

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I agree, some of the posts in this thread make me sick to my stomach. A disaster is a disaster, what ever location it is in. if you have negative thoughts about it, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. It's called tact people.

Guys, even if Apple do not donate anything themselves, even if it is just another PR move, in the end, this might help some people. So let's focus on that.

rei101 said:

No donation. I believe the US has enough money from the tax payers. The president has to take care of all that.

If he ha to use the army he can do it to place generators, remove rubble and so on. The resources are there, plenty of them.

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Sensation said:

No thanks not donating to rich countries who have enough money to look after themselves. Ask China for more money.

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SgtPepper12 said:

Donate? For the USA? Haha, of course.

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Wow.

Should people in the US stop the donations for disasters in other countries? Everyone for themselves?

macchiato2009 said:

no matching program ?

meaning you donate $5 and apple also gives $5 ????

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Do you know what Apple is doing on their own? No? I thought so...

Our family got lucky. We lost power, have a flooded basement, and damaged roof, but it could've been worse. Luckily we stocked up on food and water. We have a gas oven, so we can still make hot meals. Others have it worse. No homes and having to wait 2 hours just to get food in a neighboring town that may have power sure sucks.

My mother is great. She loves buying candles. I will never yell at her again for buying so many now. At least we can have some light in the house.

It also sucks we can't buy gas. And most likely, after tomorrow, I won't be able to even get to work unless it gets better.

I've been charging UPS backup batteries at work so we can have some electricity at home to use.

Please donate and help out those in need. We have a red cross station setup nearby and its packed. If I can't get to work next week I'll be walking over to volunteer with cleanups and anything else.


Hopefully when AT&T restores their network, it gets better. And maybe they'll put more LTE hardware up too.

For every donated dollar, apple should donate another one themselves.

It's called buying good will. Performing a social transaction on a business platform. Trying to blur the lines between just business and being part of your social network, friends and family.

Setting up procedures to make it easy and positive for you to transact on the iTunes store. If you don't think Apple do cost/benefit analysis on every single thing they do then you're foolhardy.

Costs Apple very little and gains them a lot in mindshare, getting people to feel good about iTunes and Apple, even though what they contributed could be gained back in a second of revenue.

Nice of Apple to help the relief effort by providing infrastructure for donations.

However, I'm still picking up the pieces of my own brush with Irene last year and last I checked, no one donated crap for me. Best wishes for the victims, good luck with your insurance companies. You'll need it.

tdream said:

It's called buying good will. Performing a social transaction on a business platform. Trying to blur the lines between just business and being part of your social network, friends and family.

Setting up procedures to make it easy and positive for you to transact on the iTunes store. If you don't think Apple do cost/benefit analysis on every single thing they do then you're foolhardy.

Costs Apple very little and gains them a lot in mindshare, getting people to feel good about iTunes and Apple, even though what they contributed could be gained back in a second of revenue.

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Agreed.

If Apple is donating 100%, they are actually giving money. They are eating the credit card fees. If you donate directly to Red Cross, a small percentage goes to the transaction costs. Apple is also using their hardware, engineering and security teams to protect your credit card and transacation. That's less for Red Cross to do.

unplugme71 said:

Agreed.

If Apple is donating 100%, they are actually giving money. They are eating the credit card fees (...)

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Nope, banks wave the fees, regardless how or through whom you donate.

Bezetos said:

Well I completely and utterly disagree with that way of thinking, and I actually personally find it quite sickening. A growth of a company will in no way help the people in need.

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Actually it will. The hundreds of thousands of jobs created by Apple's success results in far more charitable giving and help than any company could provide. Aside from that, it's mere speculation that Apple isn't also donating.