[xauronx]

I think the "price of being poor" is a thing to be considered here as well. Similar to the boots theory[1], I've seen my mother in law spends hundreds of dollars every year on support with Dell, and other people to keep her crappy old Windows machine running. It truly is sad, to pay someone $300 to fix a machine that's worth less than that but what is her option? Honestly, she would be much better off with an iPad for playing Youtube videos and getting email.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...

[lotharbot]

If youtube and e-mail is her use case, she doesn't need that crappy old Windows machine or a new $600 iPad, she needs something like a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 (about $150) or if the physical keyboard is important, an ASUS Transformer book ($250). There are also Chromebooks from Acer, HP, Samsung, Lenovo, etc. for under $200. All cheaper than the $300 she's paying to repair the old Dell.

I think that's a big piece of what makes the original quote from Apple seem so off-putting. They don't create hardware that's at a reasonable price point for people who are struggling with their crappy old Dell and keep paying the guys at Best Buy $300 to keep it running for another year. Your MIL has a lot of good options that she could try, but none of them are from Apple, and they give no indication that they plan to change that.