[matmat]

a few months back the iphone came out. i remember there was quite a bit of excitement about it and people lining up to be the first ones to get it. i suspect a lot of it was the "i want to be the first one on the block to have one" factor.

a short time later, apple slashed the price of the phone by something like $200. now these first owners are really disgruntled...

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/10/02/app...ref=mpstoryview

i dunno... to me it seems if you wanted it that bad, you must have been willing to shell out the cash. now deal with it...

[helene_t]

I've heard that the early buyers get $100 back. Anyway, being the first one in the whole hi-school to own an iPhone earns you eternal fame, $200 is not much for that.

[barmar]

You can only get the $100 back if you bought the 8GB model, since that's the one they cut the price of. The woman filing the lawsuit bought the 4GB model, which Apple has simply discontinued. It appears that the basis of her complaint is that the new price of the 8GB model is $100 less than what she paid for the 4GB model. This hurts the resale value of her model, because people can buy the bigger model for less.

Here's another article that explores her twisted motivation:

http://www.news.com/...9787517-37.html

[Gerben42]

At the time when she bought it she didn't think it was too expensive, if she wins this someone has really lost his/her mind.

By the way, why would I want an iPhone? Or any fancy "phone" that does 100 different things, one of which happens to be a telephone. My mobile phone has a 2-line text display, that's more than enough.

[helene_t]

Gerben42, on Oct 5 2007, 08:46 AM, said:

At the time when she bought it she didn't think it was too expensive, if she wins this someone has really lost his/her mind.

By the way, why would I want an iPhone? Or any fancy "phone" that does 100 different things, one of which happens to be a telephone. My mobile phone has a 2-line text display, that's more than enough.

For the same reason as why you want brand jeans, and a nose ring. FWIW my mobile phone can make phonecalls and wake me up, and that's it.

Btw, is this lawsuit a joke? Most of the electronic gadgets I bought, I could get cheaper and better a few months later. That's the normal thing.

[matmat]

helene_t, on Oct 5 2007, 04:22 AM, said:

Btw, is this lawsuit a joke? Most of the electronic gadgets I bought, I could get cheaper and better a few months later. That's the normal thing.

i think it is only a joke in so much that the courts will toss it out... but i do believe it has been filed and all that

[Fluffy]

barmar, on Oct 5 2007, 01:38 AM, said:

You can only get the $100 back if you bought the 8GB model, since that's the one they cut the price of. The woman filing the lawsuit bought the 4GB model, which Apple has simply discontinued. It appears that the basis of her complaint is that the new price of the 8GB model is $100 less than what she paid for the 4GB model. This hurts the resale value of her model, because people can buy the bigger model for less.

Here's another article that explores her twisted motivation:

http://www.news.com/...9787517-37.html

I have my 2x86 somewhere, will they give me back the 1000$ or so I payed for it because there si a better model for less price now?

[Gerben42]

How much does the lawsuit cost her when (not if) she loses?

[matmat]

Gerben42, on Oct 5 2007, 06:19 AM, said:

How much does the lawsuit cost her when (not if) she loses?

no clue. probably not enough.

[Gerben42]

I suggest she gets an Appeal Without Merit penalty of $1000 or so.

[matmat]

nah.
just dangle some new expensive toy in front of her nose and she'll forget all about it drooling over this new widget.

[helene_t]

Gerben42, on Oct 5 2007, 01:19 PM, said:

How much does the lawsuit cost her when (not if) she loses?

As I understand it, in the US you don't automatically pay all the lawsuit costs when you lose. This is very different from Europe, where it usually doesn't cost you to win a lawsuit because the loser will pay your lawyer.

[jtfanclub]

helene_t, on Oct 5 2007, 07:30 AM, said:

Gerben42, on Oct 5 2007, 01:19 PM, said:

How much does the lawsuit cost her when (not if) she loses?

As I understand it, in the US you don't automatically pay all the lawsuit costs when you lose. This is very different from Europe, where it usually doesn't cost you to win a lawsuit because the loser will pay your lawyer.

Just another thing Europe has that the US should copy.

It's very common to buy a a new car, say an '07 Buick, and find that you could have bought it for thousands cheaper if you had waited for the '08s to come out.

[Gerben42]

Small cars is another thing. I noticed that in the US people have HUGE cars. I wouldn't think of buying such a big car, wouldn't be able to park it anywhere but even if I could.

[barmar]

jtfanclub, on Oct 5 2007, 01:51 PM, said:

It's very common to buy a a new car, say an '07 Buick, and find that you could have bought it for thousands cheaper if you had waited for the '08s to come out.

The same thing happens with computers when a new model comes out -- the old models suddenly drop in price so that they can clear out the old inventory.

But Apple didn't come out with a new model of iPhone, they just dropped the price by 33%. And the 08's don't come out until a year after the 07's, but Apple did this just 2 or 3 months after the iPhone came out.

Apple's price change was definitely unusual, but I don't think it violated any laws.

[mr1303]

Hmm. As I understand it, as long as you don't agree with a competitor to fix prices, surely you can charge whatever you like for your product? If you charge too much, you won't sell as many as you would like, and if you charge too little, you won't make any profit.

Isn't that the whole idea of a free market economy?

Lets assume you have a market trader, selling strawberries. He charges £1.50 (approx $3) for a punnet one week. Next week he decides he could sell more if he charges £1.25, so lowers his price]

A strawberry eating customer decides to sue the market trader for "lost resale value".

I think that sums up how ridiculous this case is.

[matmat]

i think the law suit is really all about lost status.

she went from bragging:
"oh look, i've got this really expensive flashy phone"
to
"oh look, i've got this moderately expensive not so new anymore phone"

[1eyedjack]

I have seen enough bizarre rulings come out of the courts not to go into print with predictions

[barmar]

mr1303, on Oct 7 2007, 05:07 AM, said:

Hmm. As I understand it, as long as you don't agree with a competitor to fix prices, surely you can charge whatever you like for your product? If you charge too much, you won't sell as many as you would like, and if you charge too little, you won't make any profit.

It's not that simple. From http://en.wikipedia....edatory_pricing

Quote

Predatory pricing (also known as destroyer pricing) is the practice of a firm selling a product at very low price with the intent of driving competitors out of the market, or create a barrier to entry into the market for potential new competitors. If the other firms cannot sustain equal or lower prices without losing money, they go out of business. The predatory pricer then has fewer competitors or even a monopoly, allowing it to raise prices above what the market would otherwise bear.

In many countries, including the United States, predatory pricing is considered anti-competitive and is illegal under antitrust laws.

I'm not saying that Apple is doing this, but you can't just set prices however, you feel, either. A big company like Apple can afford to sell one product at a loss for a while, subsidizing it with the revenues from other products; small competitors don't have that cushion.

BTW, strawberries don't have any resale value to begin with, so they can't lose it. However, a rich farmer can't sell his strawberries below cost just so he can coerce all the small farmers to sell their land to him.