Quote:
Originally Posted by jwasbury
Maybe it is a NY thing.
stomachmonkey we will just have to agree to disagree on this point. In my view, the whole point of a physical retail store is instant gratification. This IS NYC...if I can't walk into a store and walk out with whatever I want, RIGHT NOW, I consider it a failure of capitalism.
With few exceptions, its possible to have instant gratification in this city for just about anything you could ever want. I can walk two blocks from my office and buy a PC in parts to assemble at home...chassis, power supply, NIC card, motherboard, videocard, hardrive, etc. I understand notebook components are not standardized, so its a bit different. However, I KNOW that the Apple store genius bar has replacement superdrives in stock that they could sell me. I can change a CD drive, it ain't rocket surgery. I don't buy the "don't let them tarnish your brand because of their own stupidity" BS. Car dealers offer all manner of replacement parts for vehicles they sell without tarnishing their brand. If John Q Public screws up the installation of said parts and has to come in tail-between-legs for service help, its more billable labor hours for the genius bar.
so, in summary, I like the products, I don't like the genius bar, I don't like the fact that they won't sell you parts (especially something like the superdrive which is an easy DIY swap, and is not an uncommon failure).
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I know all about the NY thing. I'm from NY, I only moved to TX a few years ago.
The reality is their are innumerable manufacturers that won't sell parts to the general public.
And to be fair when Apple stopped the practice it pissed me off as well for the same reasons you state.
But it is by no means a failure of capitalism, in fact it is one of the tenants of capitalism, a corporation is required to pursue profit.
Apple are not a peripheral manufacturer, they are not in the business of producing and selling parts so your analogy of buying a PC in parts does not apply.
While we may have personal reasons to not like their approach to certain things it's hard to argue that they are wrong. Apple has been wildly successful in retail doing it their way while everyone else failed miserably doing it the other way.
I'd rather suffer some inconvenience and have them survive and thrive than to have my way and they wither on the vine.