The well-researched video below offers clear explanations and examples of Tim Cook's anti-consumer decisions and corporate greed, as well as how things were much more pro-consumer at Apple before Cook became CEO:
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Video exposing Tim Cook's anti-consumer decisions
- Thread starter ThomasJL
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Prior to 2011 it was a different time. Nobody is forced to buy apple products for any reason whatsoever.
I'm sure if they ever got forced to have a removable battery, it'll only be a matter of time before there isn't one!
Do people really worry about losing their "phone back peel", "manual", "sticker", "box wrap"?
In the excellent video in the OP, what Tim Cook is shown to have done to Apple products is basically shrinkflation. But what Cook is doing is even worse than regular shrinkflation. Regular shrinkflation is giving customers less than before while charging the same price. Cook's style of shrinkflation is giving customers less than before while actually increasing prices.
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This video and the insane prices of iPhones is the reason I always will buy a rufurbished one. Currently enjoying an iPhone 8 with 256Gb memory for 300€, battery is still fine and I will replace the battery at least once so it will last me at least another 3-4 years.
I’ll add my gripe. I bought the new iPhone 16E. Didn’t need three cameras. The one it has is great. Biggest battery among all models. But not being able to use ProRes is a cheap tactic to make people buy a much more expensive product. It’s strictly a software issue to be able to take a video and have it go to an external SSD in real time. Apple has pushed me away. I will upgrade my 7 year old iPad this year, and keep my M2 mini going as long as possible, but this is beyond cheap greed. In 6-7 years I’ll get a flip phone if they are still available, or whatever can simply make and receive calls.
The Apple Explain guy makes videos for people that are under 20 that don't know how to do 3 seconds of research. Getting less stuff in the box sucks I know. But this is every single company now. And also Apple did it long before Tim Cook become CEO. Just look at what an iPod originally came with, and what it came with in 2011. Far less accessories, pieced out and then sold by Apple. Seriously is everyone a goldfish now?
Someone is seriously complaining about not getting more e-waste?
We don't need more chargers. A friend of mine works for a company that supplied Apple suppliers with key components for chargers. Their business cratered when Apple stopped throwing in free chargers.
If all of those people ended up buying 3rd party chargers or branded chargers as add ons, their other sales channels would have picked up the slack, but it turns out that just about everyone already has plenty of chargers.
We don't need more chargers. A friend of mine works for a company that supplied Apple suppliers with key components for chargers. Their business cratered when Apple stopped throwing in free chargers.
If all of those people ended up buying 3rd party chargers or branded chargers as add ons, their other sales channels would have picked up the slack, but it turns out that just about everyone already has plenty of chargers.
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Thread title is incorrect. The video didn’t bring any new information, so it didn’t “expose” anything we didn’t already have access to. But if it did bring additional light on anyone’s “shady secret”, then it wasn’t Tim Cook as thread title implies—it was actually Steve Jobs. At 9:55 it showed the excerpt from Steve’s internal email calling Apple to lock customers into their ecosystem.
But regarding locking customers in, I don’t even see that as a bad thing in itself depending on what he meant and how it’s done. If it’s done simply by offering great ecosystem-specific features and benefits, then that’s good because it only stands to benefit me. Then I would only be “locked in” in the same way that I don’t want to leave a heated pool on a cold winter day. On the other hand, if it’s done by something like purposely holding my data hostage by offering no way to export, then of course that’s bad and anti-consumer. But I’ve found Apple’s strategy is usually the former.
But this idea of caring about a company or wanting a company to care about me is nonsensical to me. I do want a company whose products I like, to thrive because I know companies can’t sustainably shrink nor balance on a knife’s edge, so if they thrive then they can keep on making the products I like, and can at least in theory improve them too. But I want their benefit ultimately for my benefit. It’s purely transactional. And I expect them to have the same outlook on me—because the only sustainable relationship with a company is a mutually beneficial one. It’s completely different from a human relationship of irrational self-sacrifice, so I don’t know why people expect that with Apple or any other company.
And company greed doesn’t register on my radar either. Market forces tell a company how to price. If they don’t listen to the market, then they fail. So I don’t even consider it my role to accuse a company of greed. I simply choose to either buy or not buy their individual products based on each product’s value proposition for me—and thereby I act as part of the market telling Apple if they priced correctly or greedily.
To me, these are simply matters of equations.
But regarding locking customers in, I don’t even see that as a bad thing in itself depending on what he meant and how it’s done. If it’s done simply by offering great ecosystem-specific features and benefits, then that’s good because it only stands to benefit me. Then I would only be “locked in” in the same way that I don’t want to leave a heated pool on a cold winter day. On the other hand, if it’s done by something like purposely holding my data hostage by offering no way to export, then of course that’s bad and anti-consumer. But I’ve found Apple’s strategy is usually the former.
But this idea of caring about a company or wanting a company to care about me is nonsensical to me. I do want a company whose products I like, to thrive because I know companies can’t sustainably shrink nor balance on a knife’s edge, so if they thrive then they can keep on making the products I like, and can at least in theory improve them too. But I want their benefit ultimately for my benefit. It’s purely transactional. And I expect them to have the same outlook on me—because the only sustainable relationship with a company is a mutually beneficial one. It’s completely different from a human relationship of irrational self-sacrifice, so I don’t know why people expect that with Apple or any other company.
And company greed doesn’t register on my radar either. Market forces tell a company how to price. If they don’t listen to the market, then they fail. So I don’t even consider it my role to accuse a company of greed. I simply choose to either buy or not buy their individual products based on each product’s value proposition for me—and thereby I act as part of the market telling Apple if they priced correctly or greedily.
To me, these are simply matters of equations.
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The only things off that list that I'd like to still get would be the dock and charging brick (except I know Apple would skimp on the brick, so maybe not even that).
Also, how is Cook getting the blame for things removed before he was CEO?
I'm critical of many of the things Tim Cook and modern Apple do, but not shipping a ton of garbage with every phone is actually one of the better moves they've made.
EDIT: Whoops, just realised how old this thread is. No idea how I ended up here. Apologies.
Every time I buy some random tech product, it bugs the crap out of me when it comes with a g-d USB cable that I will immediately throw into the garbage because I own like a dozen. Ditto charge bricks. Plenty of e-waste around already, no need to just keep cranking it out because people feel entitled to a pile of "free" crap when they buy a phone.
Its true that it was a different time and you are also correct that no one is forced to by their products, but the only other option is Android or Windows... So for those of us that like a more secure, private, and locked down experience wrapped in a premium feel that all "just works" (in theory), Apple is our only choice. So it sucks they don't care about their customers more than they do. Before 2015 I feel Apple did care and now they just care about profits and nothing else.
I used to work at Apple Retail from 2006-2011 and I LOVED it! It was an amazing company, but my few remaining contacts there tell me that the Apple I worked for is LONG gone. Its a shell of what it once was and that is sad.
^^^^ This is said about every company that has ever existed.
Along with the endless “corporate greed” (does “consumer entitlement/greed” factor in?) threads, it’s quite tiresome. The products we have today are amazing, and are getting better by the day.
Along with the endless “corporate greed” (does “consumer entitlement/greed” factor in?) threads, it’s quite tiresome. The products we have today are amazing, and are getting better by the day.
@ThomasJL
What are we supposed to do with this information?
I'm trying to decide whether you meant to inform us, shock us, spark a discussion, or call us to action. You didn't say. You left us hanging. But, whatever you meant to do in making this post, you aren't telling anyone what we don't already know.
So… 🤷♂️
What are we supposed to do with this information?
I'm trying to decide whether you meant to inform us, shock us, spark a discussion, or call us to action. You didn't say. You left us hanging. But, whatever you meant to do in making this post, you aren't telling anyone what we don't already know.
So… 🤷♂️
...and everybody is free to criticise Apple decisions if they don't llke them.
Nobody is calling on the US Federal Government or the EU to force Apple to bring back the "free" microfibre cloth - they're just pointing at all the nice little things that used to be bundled with these premium-priced computers.
(Edit: sorry, just noticed the age of the thread...)
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Yes, dropping basic chargers from smaller devices is starting to sound sensible now that everything is moving to USB-C. It's not like they were ever including anthing more than the bare minimum charger for the device and it's making more sense to buy one, more expensive, faster, multi-port charger for all your devices, and hang on to it when you change device. There's some really nice, small GaN (?) multi-port chargers now that are smaller than the minimal brick you used to cart around...
I've still occasionally bought chargers in the last few years - but not bog-standard, minimum-power single port ones. I've got a crateload of basic USB chargers that will give anything at least a trickle charge.
In the past, there was too much of a "do you feel lucky" element about whether chargers would work with different appliances. During a recent clear-out I let the magic smoke out a couple of HD enclosures by getting the identical non-USB power supplies mixed up (they were trash-bound anyway so I wasn't taking maximum care, but it was an accident waiting to happen).
Of course, anybody who expected the price of an iPhone to drop by anything like the retail price of an Apple charger will have learned a valuable lesson about optimism vs. experience...
Correct. But nobody is forced to buy apples products. Which means if one dislikes the way the company does business there are other products available.
If the video in the OP cannot convince people that Tim Cook makes anti-consumer decisions and is filled with corporate greed, then maybe nothing will.
Tim Cook could defecate in shoeboxes, slap an Apple logo on them and sell them, and if Apple was making astronomical amounts of money from their sales, many people would still defend Cook and that product.
Tim Cook could defecate in shoeboxes, slap an Apple logo on them and sell them, and if Apple was making astronomical amounts of money from their sales, many people would still defend Cook and that product.
Well, that would just prove how committed he was to manufacturing more Apple products locally in the USA!
What a guy
Of course, the decisions are primarily based on profit. Apple is a company, not your friend, your pal, your aunt, etc. That doesn’t mean these (also) cost cutting ideas aren’t otherwise sensible. Posts #11, #14, #19, for example, have already noted the e-waste perspective. With that said, I don’t like “green” advertising that uses “environmentally-friendly” because it’s not, it’s just less environmentally destructive.
Transitioning over to the thread title, more specifically, anti-consumerism. Removing niceties (i.e., pampering) is not anti-consumerism. Let’s use the already quoted list as an example:
Apple stickers were neat, but let’s be honest, how many people were actually eager to adhere them to their Apple (or other products)? On that note, I’m also certain most, if not all, of the marketing stuff (e.g., keychains, lanyards, custom keyboard key cap, tags, case badges) “PC” companies include is only featured in unboxing videos and is then tossed back into the box, drawer, or trash. Same thing goes for paper versions of user manuals, EULA, as well as terms and conditions documentation. According to Louis Rossmann (and at least some members here), who needs and should read those lengthy contracts? :: wink ::
If the SIM ejection tool is not included with global models, I can see a valid complaint.
Dock and microfiber cloth should be obvious, of course, they’re just nice-to-haves (included).
EarPods were nice but far from a necessity. For a dedicated music player (e.g., Sony Walkman), sure. For an iPhone, no. And — IMO extremely annoying — the (growing/grown) trend of people no longer preferring to use headphones/earphones (e.g., speakerphone, blaring social media audio or music), especially in public, further supports inclusion of such an item being pointless.
As for the box wrap… I’m completely okay with it being eliminated. The cardboard pull tab(s), which has been used on carrier shipping envelopes for what seems like forever, is easier and, unless I’m mistaken, is a (far) better indicator if packaging has been tampered with or maybe even non-genuine. And, of course, at least a tiny bit less environmentally impactful.
The already good joke(s) aside… Are you really unaware/disregarding Apple product criticisms that led to short lifespans, discontinuations — yes, even if primarily due to price (i.e., value)?
Some others that come to mind:
The OG HomePod — although, it did return in slightly new form. On the other hand, I’m not sure how great of a seller it is now.
Xserve - Wikipedia
iSight - Wikipedia
Apple QuickTake - Wikipedia
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