The Chainlink

This time they take on the iPhone 6 release and the (alleged) black market.

Warning-- this will probably not brighten your mood.

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It is things like this (and many others) that make me happy I despise all Apple products and refuse to buy myself anything that company makes.  I lost friends who were fanatical about Apple this or that, and instead of ribbing each other (I like Android) they would get overzealous and confrontational.

It's almost like Apple has its own "religion" with how bigoted and zealous people can be, IMO.

Trying to picture a person actively engaged in despising something with a happy smile.

Not succeeding.....?

I find it amusing and disconcerting at the same time.

Amusing because people are prepared to pay a premium for a product that you can buy at MSRP and have it delivered in two weeks. Enough people so that there is what looks like a scalpers market. There is not a limited supply of iPhones. This is not like a concert, let's say Pearl Jam @ Wrigley Field where supply of tickets was absolute and finite.

Its disconcerting to once again see a certain subset of recent immigrants being taken advantage of. If you are like the folks in the video, middle aged immigrants with little or no understanding of English and no particular skills, you end up being taken advantage of over and over again. These people often make less than minimum wage in sweatshop like environments. A lot of them scrape by on support from family and social services. 

Most of the black/grey market operations probably involve taking these iphones and shipping them to hong kong or china or another country where apple doesn't sell iphones.  I'd be surprised if any of those phones were resold in the US.  Alternatively, the phones could be sold in countries where import duties make buying the iphones an expensive proposition.  I've heard of south americans financing trips to the US to buy a bunch of electronics and reselling them at home.  The profits from the sales are more than enough to pay for the flights.  

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

iPhones in general, yes. iPhone 6, no. At least not in China.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/iphone-6-o...

rwein5 said:

iPhones are most assuredly already sold legitimately in China/Hong Kong.

S said:

Most of the black/grey market operations probably involve taking these iphones and shipping them to hong kong or china or another country where apple doesn't sell iphones.  I'd be surprised if any of those phones were resold in the US.  Alternatively, the phones could be sold in countries where import duties make buying the iphones an expensive proposition.  I've heard of south americans financing trips to the US to buy a bunch of electronics and reselling them at home.  The profits from the sales are more than enough to pay for the flights.  

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

Watch the video to the end.

S said:

 

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

I'm fairly neutral on line squatting, my guess is the people waiting at the front of the line could use the money they received.

I'm a bit more perturbed with the notion of so many public police essentially detailed to manage lines outside a private enterprise. A very rich company selling expensive products to well off people and much of the security for this is provided at tax payer expense. This would be the more irking of the details in here though it's likely the sales tax that came in took care of all of this.

H

I did, they got paid but it doesn't show how much.  The payout didn't look like a huge amount given unlocked iphones are 600-900+ and that those people were sitting out on the street for 12+ hours to a day or two.

h' 1.0 said:

Watch the video to the end.

S said:

 

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

Sorry- read your post too quickly maybe.

S said:

I did, they got paid but it doesn't show how much.  The payout didn't look like a huge amount given unlocked iphones are 600-900+ and that those people were sitting out on the street for 12+ hours to a day or two.

h' 1.0 said:

Watch the video to the end.

S said:

 

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

What I find interesting is the contrast between the image Apple would like to put out there of eager iPhone users excitedly waiting in line for their new device, and the gritty reality of what the "event" has turned into.

rwein5 said:

I don't honestly get why any of this matters. Probably 80% of the people who slept out overnight at the Michigan Ave store were visibly just selling their space in line (as in some had signs advertising the price they would sell the spot for). They just wern't Chinese, so apparently that was a non-story. 

Someone wanted the phone bad, for whatever reason, and they more hungry for it than the average "fanboy" demographic. Nothing illegal happened. There's no evidence anyone did this against their own will. The only definite thing here is the cops were really heavy handed with them. Everything else is speculation, jealousy, and probably a bit of racial profiling too.

I've had my Nexus 4 for 2 years now.  Same phone, except that the OS doesn't suck and I'm allowed to change things around in my settings as I see fit. 

It also has the same faults, WiFi connection issues and excessive battery draining.  You would think if Apple were going to copy what Google did 2 years later they'd at least leave out the bugs.

Have you accidentally bent it yet?
 
Self-sealing Stembolt said:

I've had my Nexus 4 for 2 years now.  Same phone, except that the OS doesn't suck and I'm allowed to change things around in my settings as I see fit. 

It also has the same faults, WiFi connection issues and excessive battery draining.  You would think if Apple were going to copy what Google did 2 years later they'd at least leave out the bugs.

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