I'm not saying that contracts can't be overturned for a variety of reasons. I'm asking for an example that is analogous to the topic of this thread. And I think you agree that there won't be one (based on your comments just below).
I've not quite sure how the price of a discretionary purchase can be "unconscionable"..... would you say the same about a diamond? Or if you use your computer for work, a hammer? When there is a shelf of hammers at all different prices and quality?
Consumers have always had this power. Its called buying someone else's product. Why should Apple be so special that it deserves boycotts and petitions for simply pricing their products profitably. Shouldn't boycotts and petitions be reserved for things that are important. Like putting pressure on companies to clean up their factories, use less toxic material in their products, stop using sweat-shops to melt down e-waste, etc etc?
Why are so many people so obsessed with the prices Apple charges? And not other company's prices?
Discretionary purchases are not protected from the rules of unconscionability. The (and this is as nerdy as it gets) Uniform Commercial Code s 2-302 expresses the law, and is applicable to all contracts for the sale of goods (provided of course that the state in question has adopted the UCC, which nearly all have). Discretionary purchases don't really enter into it on a theoretical level. Practically speaking the court may find necessary purchases more susceptible to such a rule, but still, the law is there to protect whether discretionary or not. The law of contracts is filled with cases where voluntary, discretionary purchases are rendered void for unconscionability. Diamonds, hammers, household appliances...computers, it doesn't matter.
Is there a literal correlative to this instance, where a company has a product for sale, is not pressuring anyone to buy and whose clientèle have opportunity to research/decide for themselves? Probably somewhere a court has decided that someone purchased something that in some way was part of an uncscionable contract in a situation similar to this one. But it isn't because of just pricing or innovation schedules. It is behavioral. The one I think of was with regards to a dishwasher and a traveling salesman, pressuring a destitute woman into buying into a contract with massive interest....That being said, every set of facts is different from the next but the gist can be the same. Like I said though, in this case, unless Apple was deceitful in its marketing or sales methods it is unlikely that unconscionability will enter into it.
I'm not advocating a boycott. I think, for many reasons, that it is a dumb idea. That doesn't make sense, as I was trying to say. To boycott a company for not releasing a product, only to buy the product when they release it? That isn't really a boycott is it? As for the policy reasons behind favoring or not favoring some sort of action on the part of the consumer, I would rather see people's energy be put into something worthwhile, not specs bumps on a computer. That being said...here we are aren't we? We could be doing better things with our time, but we aren't.
So, no, I don't think that Apple's behavior would be considered unconscionable. Pricing, product choice, product creation...these things aren't unconscionable behavior. Not in the least. Even their advertising, saying that the current GPU is "powerful, advanced" etc. doesn't cross any lines. That is, in the language of the law, "puffery."
I think that, with regard to Apple, we are on the same side. As for the law of contracts, we might still be in disagreement?
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