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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I think it's mostly to have a price tag that doesn't immediately turn off people.
Yes, Apple is expensive in general, however people are generally fine with paying a premium. But if they'd come at you immediately with the full price for a reasonably specced machine, it would still turn many people away.
Instead they fix you on with a high, but still somewhat reasonable price and then upsell you in steps for everything. Like sure you could buy the 128gb iPhone pro, but then the storage will fill up fast with photos and videos. A great camera system being the huge selling point of the device.
On a side note I actually find the 256gb non upgradeable/replaceable ssd much more egregious, than the 8gb RAM.
As you say, for people with basic needs (and that is actually a quite large group), it is enough for daily use. Those people just browse the Web, view photos and write short documents in word. However especially if they have an iPhone and take lots of picture/videos, they will still fill up that storage fast. And then it gets really frustrating, unless you maybe pay even more to outsource everything to the icloud and pay monthly.
The low ram and storage are to drive you up 2 tiers.
By the time you go "256gb isn't enough storage, so I'll pay 10% more for something useable", you are pretty much at the stage of "if I'm spending this much, I might as well get the ram upgrade as well". And suddenly you are paying $500 more.
Exactly my point. Not sure if there is a better term, but in some way it is a bait-and-switch tactic.
With the "starting at" sticker price of the lowest configuration they get you into the mindset of wanting (and being able to afford) their premium device. And then once you are mentally commited they it's the choice between spending even more or compromising on a premium device (where you really should have to).
That's just the reality we're in now. All components will eventually ship as a single bundle, and there's nothing you'd be able to do. Obviously there are speed and latency benefits to this, but it comes at a cost of a colossal amount of e-waste with hardcoded serial numbers. This only works in their favor, because the groups of people you've described will just return to the shop, and buy a more expensive model