Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site loral.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard) Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.apple,net.flame Subject: Re: Apple Shafts America; or, The Computer For the Rich of Us Message-ID: <505@loral.UUCP> Date: Mon, 24-Sep-84 15:01:14 EDT Article-I.D.: loral.505 Posted: Mon Sep 24 15:01:14 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Sep-84 03:31:14 EDT References: <1267@unm-cvax.UUCP> Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA Lines: 85 > I just received news concerning the Fat Mac, of which we have all >heard so much: the Macintosh, with 512K. It has been released and is >on its way, delivery date approximately three weeks (or thereabouts; >delivery dates haven't been Apple's strong point lately). > > I also received news about its price. > > Brace yourselves. > > $995. Yes, you read right: that's nine hundred ninety-five big ones, >to be removed deftly from your wallet and placed just as deftly into theirs. >All that on top of the $2495 (or $2195, if you happened to get it in one >of the recent sales that have started to spring up here and there) which all >us Macfans have already shelled out. Question: is the item worth $995? If it isn't few if any persons will pay it. If it is, what's the gripe? > [Background: My friends and I who purchased Macs are not the >businessmen-types that the Mac seems to be aimed at. We are but simple >college students, not fortunate enough (or rich enough, as the case may be) >to attend one of the schools in the Apple University Consortium, and get >our Macs for dirt cheap. Ok, that's the gripe. This thing is priced at its presumed value, rather than what those who would like to have one can afford. > Well, they sure got it to us, all right. For the measly sum of >damn near a thousand bucks extra, we plebes can get ourselves the system >that should have come out in the first place. So now Apple has us all >over a barrel. We all sprung our $2995 for the Mac and the printer, and >shortly afterwards realized that the thing was absolutely useless without >the second disk drive. So, another $495 went down the drain. Next comes >the realization that with the basic 128K, the user is left with too little >memory to accomplish anything significant. So, another $995 down the tubes. >Thus Steve Jobs' vision of the computer that anyone can use has become the >computer that no one can afford, because a workable system sells for $4485. >What a bargain! The question remains: what was the basic Mac system worth? If is wasn't worth the $2995 it cost, why did anyone buy it? If it was, what's the gripe? $995 for 384K of memory doesn't strike me as exorbitant. > Looks like Steve & Co. are standing by to rake in the big bucks; The >Rest of Us can all bend over and grab our ankles. It's coming in dry, folks; >no Vaseline on this one. >...Apple has shown that, in the end, they're not that much >different from any other computer company, that they don't really give a >damn about the end-user, and that the final arbiter is, as we all suspected >but hoped against hope was not true, the bottom line on the ledger books. Looks to me a bit like the old "I want it, I can't afford it, therefore those who sell it at the price I can't afford are money-grubbing hogs" line. I am sure of one thing; the author of this complaint will eventually depend on some business institution for his bread and butter (he does now, but perhaps doesn't realize it). If that company prices its products higher than their worth (to the market that buys them), they won't sell, and someone will come up with the same thing at a better price and capture the market. On the other hand, if it sells at prices that do not respect that "bottom line", they won't exist; and this person will find his employer bankrupt. Businesses (including Apple) exist ONLY because they are able to market a product at a price that satisfies that market and produces revenues sufficient to pay its bills, its employees and management, and produces with some regularity a profit for the owners of the business. If you want to get something for less than it costs to produce it, who are you expecting to take up the loss, to subsidize you? If you believe, as you indicated, that the price will drop, then perhaps the thing to do is to wait until that time. Until then, I can't see any basis for criticizing Apple. -- [ I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet ] Ray Simard Loral Instrumentation, San Diego {ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard