[handsclean]

Many people got played on the charger thing. It’s never free, it’s a mandatory bundle. But companies only put one line item on the receipt, never refer to the primary component separately but instead conflate its name and idea with the bundle, and when forced to de-bundle (usually) bump the primary component’s price to compensate, and people buy it: “the EU took away my charger!”

Chargers don’t change quickly. If I lost my charger from 2019, the ideal replacement in 2025 would be literally exactly the same model—and mine still works like new and looks good. I have nothing to gain from buying a new charger.

We should be cheering the EU for ending an abuse that the US has long failed to.

Also, it still bundles a USB-C to MagSafe 3 cable.

[crazygringo]

I mean, every laptop needs a charger.

If you sell your old laptop when you buy a new one, you generally sell it with old charger. And different Apple laptops take chargers of different maximum watts (they're compatible but not optimal), so they're not all the same anyways.

There's a reason they generally make sense to bundle. Especially with laptop chargers, which provide a whole lot more power than some random little USB-C charger you might have. Sometimes letting the free market decide actually gives customers what they want and find most useful.

[handsclean]

> If you sell your old laptop when you buy a new one, you generally sell it with old charger.

Sounds like a symptom of incompatibility. I’ve only ever included the charger when it was specific to the laptop.

> And different Apple laptops take chargers of different maximum watts (they're compatible but not optimal), so they're not all the same anyways.

Chargers automatically provide whatever power level is needed, up to their max, and charging power isn’t the steady tick upward we’re used to elsewhere. The MacBook Pro did get a faster charger a few years ago, relegating old ones to that “compatible but not optimal” state, but meanwhile MacBook Air chargers got slower, and most releases didn’t change the charger. Certainly there are sometimes benefits to buying a new charger, but it happens much less often than new device purchases, and even when there are benefits purchases should still be the customer’s choice.

> Sometimes letting the free market decide actually gives customers what they want and find most useful.

I agree, but “free market” doesn’t mean lawlessness, it means an actual market that’s actually free. Actual market: companies compete on economics, not e.g. violence or leverage over consumers. Actually free: consumers freely choose between available options. Bundling is a very classic example of an attempt to circumvent free market economics, using the greater importance of one choice to dictate a second choice.

[crazygringo]

> Bundling is a very classic example of an attempt to circumvent free market economics, using the greater importance of one choice to dictate a second choice.

Only when there's no competition and you can use that to abuse market power.

But competition for laptops is strong. Most consumers want their laptops to come with a charger, even if you personally don't. That's why they're sold that way.

Like, nobody says the free market is failing because Coke forces me to buy carbonated H2O along with their syrup at the grocery store. The market prefers it when they're bundled.

[handsclean]

I think you missed the point about bundling. In this instance, the first choice is your laptop choice, and the second is your charger choice. Because the first choice is far more important than the second, the party that’s chosen in the first can also dictate the second. There is no competition for who supplies chargers that come with MacBooks, nor should one expect there to be. This is a generalization of the mechanism by which many segment monopolies work, for example regional ISPs, where the two choices are most of your life vs your ISP.

> Most consumers want their laptops to come with a charger, even if you personally don't. That's why they're sold that way.

Citation needed, on both counts. Plenty of counter-examples in this thread. Non-tech people I know aren’t charger crazed, they’re mildly amused or annoyed by their inexplicable excess of chargers.

> Like, nobody says the free market is failing because Coke forces me to buy carbonated H2O along with their syrup at the grocery store.

I’d say it is indeed failed / nonexistent there, it’s just that nobody cares, because its potential benefit is so small it’s outweighed by overhead. Chargers aren’t laptops or cars or houses, but, as you said, there’s a lot more to them, and they’re more expensive and contribute significantly to e-waste. There actually is a charger market, and it’s better when it’s more free.

To be clear, the healthier market I’m envisioning is one where consumers can make charger purchasing decisions freely, not one where nobody’s allowed to also offer a bundle.

[crazygringo]

> Non-tech people I know aren’t charger crazed, they’re mildly amused or annoyed by their inexplicable excess of chargers.

"Charger crazed"? Huh?

They're amused by too many cheap underpowered phone and small device chargers. Not laptop chargers. Those are bigger and you don't usually have any extra.

There isn't much of a "charger market" for laptops, except people who want a second one for a second location. I've never heard of anybody with a Macbook who wanted to buy a non-Apple charger instead. And now Magsafe is back!

Like, my Macbook also bundles a keyboard, a screen, a trackpad, a battery, and so forth. Sure the charger isn't connected with adhesive, but it's still a unified product. You need a charger to use a Macbook, and most people don't have an extra laptop charger with enough power otherwise.

Forcing them to be sold separately for laptops is just silly.