[seanmcdirmid]

Margins are an indication of how good the product is. Either you compete on quality, or you compete on price, basically. Also, value != price alone, or even the margin the company is making on the product (they could just be more efficient and better at execution than their competitors).

[dragontamer]

Margins are an indication of how much you're getting screwed by your supplier.

Now don't get me wrong, a number of Apple-users are rational beings. They actually argue to me that they get huge value from iDevices, and I'm fine with that. If its your cup of tea, yes, go on and get it. (And I won't call these guys part of the iCult. Rational Apple-users are indeed... rational).

However, people like you argue that high margins are a good thing. NO THEY'RE NOT. Margins are: * Cost of the device MINUS cost that Apple spent to create the device

The larger the margin, the more Apple is screwing you out of your money. Period. No rational consumer should EVER be happy about being conned out of tons and tons of money.

And to see these idiotic members of the iCult, so proud... so happy to waste money, and BRAG about the margins that Apple is stealing from them... it really is enough to make me lose faith in the free market.

Remember, in a free-market with perfect competition, profits approach zero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition / http://www.economicprofit.org/Zero-Economic-Profit.html. Consumers in a free market should NEVER be pleased when they learn that the products they buy are leading to record-breaking profits on top of record-breaking margins for a company.

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm not so infatuated with Apple products as I'm disgusted with the quality of the competition. When Android phones and tablets actually become usable and won't break after a few months, I might consider saving money on them.

The iCult doesn't exist, you are just trying to justify your own buying decisions. But go ahead and keep thinking otherwise, I really don't care.

[dragontamer]

Oh look, an actual _argument_. As I stated before, if you actually don't like Android or any of the other competition, I'm perfectly fine with that.

But as long as you "brag" about Apple's profits, you are masochistically accepting punishment from a company that you hold dear. You are bragging about how much Apple manages to take your money away from you...

And that just isn't right.

So IMO, keep the arguments against Android, argue about why other systems are bad. But whatever you do, do NOT pretend like Apple's huge profits are a good thing for you as a consumer.

[seanmcdirmid]

BMW's higher profit margins than Hyundai is not good or bad for consumers; are BMW owners getting the same car for the money they pay? Can Hyundai compete with BMW in the lux market? I don't think BMW owners feel f*cked over by BMW because BMW makes more money per car than Hyundai does.

As long as we aren't forced to buy Apple products, i.e. we have a free market, Apple's huge profits don't matter to consumers. Perhaps Apple has a monopoly on smartphones that don't suck balls, but until the DOJ sees it necessary to break them up for it, I reserve judgement.

BTW, I happily use a Nokia 920, not an iPhone, but I'm tired of these Apple cultists economics-ignorant conspiracy theories. The cult argument is usually used by people who just can't understand free markets.

[dragontamer]

You know what? Maybe I'll start shopping at HSN instead of Amazon, because as we all know, HSN's higher margins obviously means that they're a superior store than Amazon's crappy margins. </sarcasm>

Profit margins are irrelevant to the discussion.

[seanmcdirmid]

Red herring. If HSN and Amazon are selling the same crap, prices correlate more directly to value. Otherwise, if an apple costs 50 cents and an orange costs 25 cents, which one do you want?