What has Apple got against Eastern Europe? | Hacker News Reader

What has Apple got against Eastern Europe?

economist.com

56 pointsjkaljundi46 comments

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Ah, it's about iTunes? Get over it. I'm pretty sure the record labels are to blame.

For example, I live in Belgium, but I can not buy mp3 files from Amazon:

* amazon.com doesn't sell to people in Europe

* amazon.co.uk only sells to people living in the UK, and I don't live in the UK

* amazon.fr only sells to people living in France, and I don't live in France

* amazon.de only sells to people living in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and I don't live in Germany, Switzerland or Austria.

What's left? Nothing.

amazon.co.uk also sells to people in Ireland.

What's left? there's always an option to go to thepiratebay.

This article is largely ignorant of the larger issues in play. Media companies only sell the rights to distribute in certain geographic markets. If Apple could let everyone buy from the US store tomorrow they would. Granted there are not iTunes Stores for every country, but a larger number. Many of these only have Apps and iTunes U, but that's because Apple doesn't have the legal rights to distribute music or movies in those markets. While perhaps some markets have been ignored, I bet that largely it's not because of a lack of trying. The groundwork for the iTunes Store has already been done in many cases. Every thing I've heard has presented the iTunes Store as targeted to be revenue neutral, designed to help drive sales of Apple hardware.

I agree with you that the record labels are probably the root cause. However I don't like the idea that "It's not Apple's fault, it's the labels". Apple claimed the record labels forced them to put DRM on iTunes, but then Apple put DRM on the AppStore. Did the record labels really insist on DRM for indie app developers? Fact is Apple likes DRM and control.

Apple actually has a giant physical store in Beijing.

http://www.apple.com.cn/retail/sanlitun/

I know it because of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8vqSJAOC7I

They're also building a big one in Shanghai.

http://gizmodo.com/5279167/apples-massive-shanghai-store-mix...

Interestingly enough they don't sell anything online. Maybe it has to do with Chinese buy everything in cash.

I had similar problems with Google and Android here in Poland. I wanted to order Dev Phone 1, fortunately Poland was one of the countries that could do that, but I was shocked when I saw shipping costs: $ 235.65 total for 399$ phone. And of course we can't buy anything on Android Market. Fortunately there are other markets available with support for more countries.

Same problem with games. I bought Street Fighter IV to play online, but Windows Live doesn't support Poland. I coudn't believe it! Why are they selling me not working product? I had to make british Live! account in order to play online.

Same here. I got a Dev Phone shipped to the UK, and it cost loads more. The extra cost was to pay for customs and import tax AFAIK.

I got ADP1 shipped to Austria and it was €390 at the time (phone + s&h + duties + vat). From what I remember, the most expensive shipment at that time was to... Canada.

Another question is why is apple merchandise so much more expensive in Europe? Most european countries have around 20% VAT, but the prices sometimes are even 50% higher.

Everything is sold with the same price but a different currency sign. Just replace $ with € and you're done. Games, consoles, hardware...

Example:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47700/?cc=US

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47700/?cc=DE

(I know this isn't true for everything, but it certainly feels that way)

fortunately € will soon be on par with $

So, order abroad and be done with it. One more reason Apple doesn't want people to order more than 2 ipads I guess, it will cut in to their future profits.

In fact I just did. Bought a high-end pen tablet on ebay from a seller in the US. Even including overseas shipping, it was half the asking price here, so I felt lucky. The only problem, the package arrived with the box tampered and the tablet itself missing. So I am now stuck with a grip pen and a bunch of driver CD's :)

Man that sucks, I hope you can somehow get your money back.

Was the delivery insured?

Thanks, I really felt depressed that day. Not as much about the money (although it put a dent in my ramen budget), as the feeling of being robbed of a new toy :)

Yes, since it was Express Mail, it was automatically insured for 100 bucks.

Ditto for Sweden. iPod touch 2K/3K/4K SEK (http://store.apple.com/se/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_...). But $1 ~ 7.2 SEK so it's about 40% more expensive. Lots of things were priced to the convenient round number: a can of coke was 10 SEK ($1.40), a sandwich would be 50 SEK ($7), so it was convenient but very expensive compared to US.

When movies and music are not available in an iTunes store, isn't it due to licensing issues with the studios? I'm in Singapore, and we never had iTunes store, just the App store.

Edit: English.

I live in Ukraine and just use a jailbroken iPhone with pirated apps.

For ten years I've used a Windows PC with pirated apps, games, and media. As did everyone I knew. Sneaker-nets were extremely well developed, until P2P took over later.

Now that I'm a software writer myself, I see things differently, but that's just self-interest talking.

I live in Ukraine and hope to be able to make sure Apple doesn't see a cent of my money. I feel the same towards Microsoft, but there's no avoiding their products (they saw to that).

A small nitpick: "Estonians invented another icon of internet cool: Skype." Skype was invented by Janus Friis, a dane, and Niklas Zennnstrøm, a swede. They did outsource a lot of their development to Estonia though.

Those were just the company founders. The development is the part where you actually invent things.

Depends what you consider "inventing". The Estonian technical co-founders of Skype were working together with Janus and Niklas already during Kazaa times, and were co-founding shareholders and behind the whole Skype architecture from day one. I would not call that outsourcing. Of course they don't mind you calling them whatever you like, as they got their 200 mUSD part :)

I didn't know that, thanks for the clarification.

Related issue is becoming an Apple developer in many countries, which used to be almost impossible or just take months. In many cases they did not accept credit cards issued in most countries of the world, when signing up. In other cases it was just delayed for months and months.

he he, this is how my dislike for all things apple began ;)

I had to write to their support in order to get an iTunes account for my iPod Touch. I got it working in the end, after several emails, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. When the controversies around iPhone app store approvals and developer accounts started, I swore to my self I would get rid of all Apple products, and I did.

Frankly, a company that displays such arrogance doesn't get to get me as a customer. Their software is limited, hardware overpriced, policies ridiculous, and in my opinion, only thing they got going for them is the design.

Computers are devices, not fragrances, they should be feature-full and powerful, not beautiful in a chick magazine sort of way.

> Computers are devices, not fragrances, they should be feature-full and powerful, not beautiful in a chick magazine sort of way.

Okay. So you want "a man's computer." You are a member of one niche market.

Apple goes after a different niche market (though I think "chick magazine" does not capture its essence).

In any case, Apple makes business decisions. Some who evaluate their growth, earnings, and prospects conclude there is some business savvy in their business model.

they are savvy, yes. no argument there ;).

p.s. i may have gone overboard with my description there :).

If you like the hardware, but not iTunes, why not buy and use the hardware (and Mac OS X, of course) and get media through other means ? That's what I do. I still use iTunes as a music player and I've downloaded some free stuff. And of course you can sync external media to an iPod through iTunes, so no worries.

uhm, it doesn't matter how pragmatic I try to be in regard to my decisions regarding tech. equipment I use, I tend to avoid those kinds of compromises.

Finally someone noticed. I've been ranting about this for years now. And there are two parts to it: media companies having stupid dinosaur-age licensing policies and Apple not treating all markets equally. One is often a smokescreen for the other.

On a related note:

In India:

http://smokingapples.com/india/apple-support/

http://smokingapples.com/india/apple-india-sucks/

http://smokingapples.com/india/demystifying-iphone-3gs-in-in...

Apple completely ignores India.

Our level of income is roughly 1/3 of that in the U.S, but Apple stuff costs roughly 50% more. That's why I buy all my Apple stuff on ebay.

It is not only Apple, and it is not only media rights, there are other issues.

For example shop.lego.com has a strange list of countries where they ship to: Poland is included, but Norway is excluded.

Why would anyone want to not sell stuff in some contries?

Because they believe the costs (both up front and running) will be too high relative to the expected returns.

Because selling media costs money, and some countries can't really offer much reward. To sell music you have to deal with labels and, sometimes, local authorites, while risking small profits. Here in Poland we have some archaic organizations like ZAiKS, and most people view paying for music as insanity. That means that we have no major mp3 store in Poland at all (afaik 7digital and Beatport sell to Poland, and we have some niche stores, but that's all unless you want to import scrap cards)

In Czech Republic the situation is very similiar. But there are still many people who would like to pay for video and music on iTunes, because it is really easy and fast. Why we in 21st centure have to go to store and buy physical media? "Stoneage!"

It's not just eastern europe; I still can't buy movies from the Netherlands, but there's no other service I can use here either.

iphones are very popular in ukraine/russia, but russian MTS mobile operator couldn't sell as much iphones as they bought from apple. here in eastern europe is all about price. people like overpriced stuff even if they can't afford it. if iphone would cost 200$ with contract noone would bother buying it - there's always expensive nokia:)

My guess is it's the 80/20 rule applied to customers and Apple likes profit margins much more than just revenues.

Also, it's stereotypical that third world folks abuse store return policies and customer support in general.

> My guess is it's the 80/20 rule applied to customers and Apple likes profit margins much more than just revenues.

Speculating is one thing...

> Also, it's stereotypical that third world folks abuse store return policies and customer support in general.

...but it's inexcusable when it leads to unsubstantiated claims that tar so many people with the same brush.

Also it's a massive stretch to call any but a very small handful of Eastern European countries "3rd world". (I need not defend Eastern Europe, since I'm South African myself, but it's plain as day that a lot of Eastern Europe is not doing too badly).

Uhmm, you may all want to brush up on your geopolitics and what "3rd world" means. Eastern Europe is and always was in the "2nd world" (the label that never stuck, just like "1st world").

Which is a label as relevant as "communist world", and "non-aligned world" isn't it?

A poor person has a different relationship with the things he/she purchases than a rich person. One of the ways this manifests itself is in store returns and higher demands on customer support (as well as, sometimes, a lack of appreciation or desire to pay for quality). This seems obvious to me and I don't feel the need to be PC on the internet.

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