Lazy J Loc: Pacific Northwest

Yet they still feel they need to charge $5,000 for a moderately sized 5k monitor!

American corporate greed is alive and well! With that said, we all keep paying their excessive product prices!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/investing/apple-three-trillion-dollar-market-cap/index.html

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Well, not ALL of us. I use an IPad and a 5-6 year old IPhone, but ONLY because they are a competitively priced and cost effective solution.

Walkabout08

I admit it, I’m a fan of their products. Albeit they are expensive but they work well and when you need it their support is second to none. And owning their stock the past 15 years has also been rewarding!

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

I just traded in my iPhone 11 for the 13 and got 450.00 trade in on the 11 which is about 40% of the new phone cost. Have to factor that in as well as direct and indirect excellent service which is available. Apple laptops have gone up but have to factor in that I have not had a security issue nor a service issue since I changed to Apple 12 years ago. Guess that has to count for something! Apple desktop computers with big monitors are some of the best buys out there. Mine is configured with ability to add on hard disk and Ram memory for very little. Am I a fan of Apple products- yes! My experience has been a trouble free system for many years. Some things are worth the extra cost.

Canisdirus

They do it on the backs of slave labor as well...just made a deal of giving 337 billion in tech to China.
Apple is a gross violator of human rights...for profit. I won't ever buy one of their products...ever.
They aren't the only ones...Nike is in there too.
In fact Congress was pushing a bill through banning any imports using slave labor...one source of slave labor in China is with cotton as well as with assembly of Apple gear.
Both Apple and Nike lobbied heavily to defeat this bill.

They KNOW what they are doing...and they don't care.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Apple makes a lot of money, but 50% of it comes from data services, not goods.

neillaubenthal

Whatever you *THINK* you know that Apple is doing as compared to other tech companies…well I gotta tell you every last one…100% of them…are doing*EXACTLY* the same thing. And it isn't just tech companies…clothes, cars, just about anything you can buy these days.

But you decided to criticize Apple because you're an Apple hater I guess. In fact…they probably do better than most tech companies at trying to enforce good labor practices…but it's a simple fact that labor costs are the reason that just about EVERY tech company uses non US manufacturing facilities.

This isn't anything against fair wages or a living wage or whatever you want to call it…it's simple recognition of facts. Sure…Apple could build iPhones in the US…and Samsung et. al. could build Android phones in the US as well…but they would cost double the price they are now and that's due to a bunch of factors…not the least of which are US consumers won't pay double and US labor costs have gotten extremely out of whack because of unions.

Not a criticism of unions either…they were a good thing back in the early days when companies actually did exploit workers…and I'm not criticizing blue collar union workers who just want to better their families situation…but from the new pay rates that I saw that folks at Kellogg got for making Cheerios and that auto fabricators and steel workers are getting…well it means that part of the problem is the fault of ever increasing labor costs.

FotoHog Loc: on Cloud 9

Insatiable greed is not the sole province of only one side. Unfortunately, it is a never changing dark side of human nature.

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

You make good points. Add in stock holder greed (us?) for the best return on our money...

Slave labor? We can't compare what those in many foreign countries make to US standard. Nor can we compare their cost of living- it is wildly different. Where could a family make it in the US on 76.00 a month income? I helped support a family from the Philippines for 8 years through charitable donations. The father's income was 76.00 a month and I added 50% of that each month which allowed the family to put their children in school and pay for some groceries and incidentals. What we may consider slave labor may be welcome in some societies.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Speaking of corporate greed...take a look at the profits of the producers of COVID-19 vaccines and then stop to think for a moment about who is paying for all of those "free to the public" vaccines as well as that of the testing. Just follow the money.

Of course, the "crime of the century" is Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family with a net worth of $10.8 billion mostly attributed to Oxycontin and the unscrupulous methods of promoting its distribution and the deaths attributed to the opioid crisis.

Canisdirus

Hogwash...yes many offenders...but they all pale in comparison to Apple.
The big boys don't run things in China...China does.
Apple is fine with it. So are others.
I try to buy from Democracies.

Apple is all in with the communists.

Smudgey Loc: Ohio, Calif, Now Arizona

I totally agree, been using Mac's as long as there have been Macs, also iPhone, iPad, and if you have a problem they help you, no matter how old the unit is for free.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

That $450 didn't come from Apple, it came from your cell provider.

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Actually it didn't. I bought the phone directly from Apple and got the trade in from them. My cell provider was offering 400.00.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I sit corrected.