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From: Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com>
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Subject: Re: What's the actual *advantage* of not having an sd slot?
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:40:01 +1200
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On 2025-06-24 07:18:47 +0000, R.Wieser said:

> Your Name,
>> 
>> (or when they do, it's  via a survey of a tiny proportion of the customers).
> 
> Thats called statistically probing.  It time-wise and financially makes 
> no sense to call /all/ (prospective!) customers and ask them about a 
> new product.

Having done statistics at university, surveys / polls / studies are not 
accurate. The problem is that too many people believe they are accurate 
and even worse the morons in management believe the results and base 
their decisions on them.  :-(

The reality is that surveys / pools / studies are purposely designed to 
"prove" whatever the person paying for it wants it to "prove", thanks 
to using loaded questions and ignoring answers that don't fit. That not 
only makes them inaccurate, but also irrelevant.




>> There are always multiple "reasons" and "excuses" as to why a company 
>> does something. Many of them are silly and superfluous when the reality 
>> is that the changes usually simply mean more money for the company.
> 
> :-(  Now you're starting to sound like Arlen (Marion).  You have zero 
> to go on in that direction, while I've been trying to provide several 
> reasons why prices change.   If you do have reasons to think such a 
> thing than please include them.  I regard this as a discussion, and I'm 
> quite willing to hear and consider such information.

The cost of any hardware features on a device are passed on to the 
customer, usually at an inflated price. Removing the feature rarely 
results in a lower price, so that "extra" money goes straight into the 
company's pockets.

The extra cost of the slightly improved camera may replace the cost of 
the removed headphone jack, but such a tweak in the new model's 
features doesn't cover the cost of the removed charger.

Even on the mundane level, Apple used to include a couple of "free" 
stickers ("decal" in Americanese) with every device, but no longer 
does. The money saved didn't come off the product prices, so that saved 
money went straight into the company's bank account.




>> Car companies for example, plan their standard car colours due to what 
>> they *think* will be in fashion once the car is on sale.
> 
> Not a good example, as you can effectivily buy a car of any color and 
> than give it a paint job.   Yes, thats more expensive than going with 
> one of the standard colors. So, most people don't.
> 
> But its actually a nice example to why car manufacturers will not paint 
> their cars in every color there is : there is a good chance that they 
> will than not sell all the cars with less-favorable colors.   Just 
> imagine yourself in a purple-and-yellow pokedot car.  Or a two-color 
> chessboard pattern.  Or, as a straight hetro, in a pink one. :-)    So, 
> the manufacturer chooses to paint their cars with "safe" colors, to 
> minimize any losses in that regard.

They don't use "safe" colours" They use the colours that their 
over-paid fashion experts tell them will be "in vogue" when the car is 
released. That's why there was a fad for bright banana yellow cars that 
every car reviewer told people to avoid because the redsale value would 
plummet.



> 
>> Build to order options can make it easier for customers to get (to some 
>> degree) the features they actually do want.
> 
> And as I already tried to explain, quite a "bit" more expensive.  Most 
> likely the whole device would than need to be redesigned, as a 
> smartphone is rather compact (very little, if any empty space), and you 
> can't just throw another component into it.

Technically you can, but not with Apple's design ethos of having no 
visible screws and soldering everything down.

There are one or two makers that specifically have modular cellphones 
where the user can plug toegether the features they want.



>> Those who insist on buying the latest toy on the block when there 
>> current device still works perfectly well are simply idiots with more 
>> money than sense ... and it's these fools that big business relies on 
>> to keep going.
> 
> Absolutily.   And you should include those to-much-money bling-bling 
> people as a cause of stuff getting more expensive. :-|

The main cause of so-called "inflation" is the ever-increasing pay 
packet given to the morons in management.



>> Which proves the point. The company *is* trying to make more money at 
>> the customer's expense ... i.e. they *are* goughing the customer
>> (to some degree).   :-p
> 
> I'm glad you added that smiley.  :-)
> 
> Yes, companies are out to make as much money off of their customers as 
> they can.   On the other hand, customers expect/demand "the best ever 
> {product}", while not really wanting to pay a cent for it.  IOW, they 
> are thieves too. <whistle>
> 
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser

Most people are willing to pay a sensible price, but the reality is 
most companies (especially tech companies) gough the customer for as 
mush as they can thanks to the greedy stupidity of "supply and demand". 
  :-(

What the morons in management rarely understand is that if the product 
was cheaper, more people would likely buy it ... rather than selling 
less product at a higher price.