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Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

True, but to be fair, the same mechanism also blocks thieves from using and/or selling stolen Macs.

Fair enough, but the problem is mainly when you are in a third world country and parts are very difficult to get, and where Mac stores are non-existent.

People in third world countries buy Macbooks - really? A decent macbook is several times above an average monthly income in a first-world country already...

Second hand devices they may, although I'm not sure how many people are shipping Apple products out of the Country given the large scam risk.

Oh, prepare to be mind-blown. Let me tell you how it works. Someone goes to the US (such as a direct flight to NY or ATL), they hop off the plane, load a backpack full of laptops, then fly back and resell them without paying import taxes or VAT. It works even better if the person flying is flying for work and someone else buys the ticket.

It's not scalable, but works pretty good when a group of friends purchases them.

Cost of MBP in the US: $2,799 (€2,390)

Cost of MBP in NL: €3,199 ($3,746)

Cost of plane ticket from NL to US: (pre-covid) ~€600

You have to get rid of the packaging, and dump all the manuals etc or otherwise you might get a date with customs to explains why you have 10 unopened MBP's in your backpack and you get a nice import fee + VAT or you can leave them at the customs office. Also, you get about 10% tax added when buy.

>> You have to get rid of the packaging, and dump all the manuals

Good thing Apple laptops don't come with manuals. There isn't much much more than a couple stickers and a microfiber cloth in the box.

Last time I did this, when the officials saw the number of laptops in my carryon they sent me over to the diplomat line for faster processing.

LOL, what happened then?

There is only anticlimax :) The ‘executive’ screener was kindly about helping me sort them into a line of individual trays and then back into the luggage and didn’t show the slightest curiosity about any of it.

That's funny, when I flew in LA from Bali, I got stuffed in a room for four hours because I had a rock in my suitcase.

Returning from Singapore I was asked if I had any "rare feathers"... I said no but was still taken aside and searched.

I like processing through Newark, New Jersey the best. They seem to have the least propensity for wasting your (their) time, or else a very good nose on who the actual problems are in the crowd and focusing their attention on them. [edit: and these use beagles to check luggage! How cute is that.]

On the topic of exploiting the VAT system, it's interesting to read up on the missing trader fraud and carousels in general.

I do exactly this for our US/EU startup, which is located a few countries away from the nearest Apple Store.

Of course we buy them! The same way in your country there are rich peoples able to afford yachts, we also have an upper class capable of buying all the Apple stuffs.

I'd guess many in third-world countries buy second-hand Macbooks, as they have a reputation (at least in the past) for lasting a long time?

And are there any first-world countries (except maybe the US^^) where a 13" Macbook is several times the average net monthly income? In Germany, for instance, the monthly average net wage (MANW) is €2500, while the price of a 13" Macbook starts at €1300. Italy: MANW is €1700, Spain: €1800, France: €2400, UK: €2200. Go to the Nordic countries, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria etc. and we're talking MANW of €3000+. Canada has MANW of around US$3400.

^^ If the US is the only first-world country matching your statement, one could argue this is further evidence that the US is no longer a first-world country.

You mixed that reputation up with Lenovo thinkpads. Apple keyboards break down after several years with the touchpad and butterfly keyboard disasters are even unusable afresh. You cannot replace anything, and are way overpriced.

Thinkpads on the other hand are like Toyota's

My 2016 MBPr was of the first gen with all these changes and it's doing fine as I type this message.

My 2017 MBPr isn't quite the same -- I've had the keyboard changed 3 times so far due to the double key tap issue.

I don't mind though; I'm actually happy when it happens because I get a new battery and top case for free.

How do I get a replacement though?

Ask Apple - it's called the Keyboard Service Program

One could say that you're mixing Thinkpads from IBM era, where they were really well made (my first A21m holds a special place in my heat till this day), Thinkpads from Lenovo that are plastic piece of garbage and MacBooks from Apple post keyboard change, that was indeed faulty, but it isn't anymore. There you go, I've fixed it for ya ;)

That’s going back a very long time. Early Lenovo ThinkPads like the X60 were also excellent.

If you haven't come across it, [HOPE]'s work getting modern internals in X60s is pretty cool. Not sure where the project is at now, I think at some point they were orderable.

https://hackaday.com/2018/03/12/new-guts-make-old-thinkpads-...

>Apple keyboards break down after several years with the touchpad and butterfly keyboard disasters are even unusable afresh. You cannot replace anything, and are way overpriced.

I have 10 and 15 year old iBooks and MacBooks and MacBook Pros with intact keyboards...

You mixed the issue with the butterfly BS keyboards in the past 2-3 years with the old Apple keyboards (which didn't just "break down"). The resale value of old Mac laptops I think speaks for itself related to that.

That said, Thinkpads are indeed built like Toyotas and have easy replacements.

> with the butterfly BS keyboards in the past 2-3 years

Sadly 4 years now, they started in 2016. It's the main issue blocking me from buying another MBP - this keyboard broke when it was already out of warranty, I really don't want to risk it again.

Risk what though? They have changed the keyboard now.

They’ve changed the keyboard three times over 4 years, iirc; I am somewhat skeptical that they really know how to get it right given the constraints of their current design.

In the last iteration, they've also changed the design (mechanism).

I was referring to the thinness and resulting length of travel allowed to keys, which afaik are still extreme. TBF i've not tried one of the latest models yet. But as I said, I'm now a bit skeptical. Trust in quality is hard to regain after so many disappointing years.

I have a 2016 Macbook Pro that is out of warranty and Apple is replacing the keyboard at no cost. Unless you broke the keyboard through abuse, any keyboard issues present as a result of "BS keyboards" are covered by Apple.

I have 5 good old macbook airs without the problematic butterfly keyboard and they all became unusable with some dead keys after around 5 years. For 1 or 2 keys you can workaround it, but then you can throw it away.

Does not happen with proper keyboards. Esp. thinkpads.

eh, my 2013 rMBP is kicking a long pretty well. Kinda sluggish but no issues with the keyboard. It's been dropped a few times too and the screen cable disconnected at some point from a fall but was an easy fix.

2012-2015 rMBPs are the best laptops ever produced, imho. My 2012 rMBP has been passed down to my brother, with a new ssd, and still rocks.

Why Apple had to mess with that perfect formula, I will never understand. I blame Ive.

I’ve been saying it for years!

My 2012 and 2009 Mbps run like new

I got my Thinkpad Edge E530 replaced twice during warranty (motherboard problems) and my work Thinkpad T420s broke down one month after warranty ended, so I have completely opposite experience. I got no problems with IBM Thinkpad T42 though.

The MANW in the United States is €4500 equivalent, the fourth highest in the world.

Since you could have derived this data from the same source as all the other numbers in your post, I'm not sure what the point of your little dig was.

Can you please provide a source from where you got your numbers as I have a feeling some are quite wrong.

Maybe in Switzerland , but in Austria the MANW is definitely not 3000+ Euros a month. As a developer I don't earn nowhere near close that NET every month and salaries here are lower overall than in Germany.

I am also interested in the numbers but you aren't earning anywhere near 3k net a month? thats roughly 56k pre-tax. doesn't sound too high to me?

Where did you get your 56K pre-tax?

3k/month NET here means almost 70K/year pre-tax for a single person with no children.

Source: https://bruttonetto.arbeiterkammer.at/

same website :D 70k/year is 5k monthly which results in 44k post tax. thats 3700 a month post tax. only us austrians (and i think italians?) do this whole nonsense of 13/14/15/16th salary

You're right, I forgot to divide the 13 and 14 salary. Even with those included, I'm at 2750 NET per month(49K/year before taxes), which is still below the 3000+ average claimed above and devs tend to be above average paid(usually).

Or everyone else makes 3000+ and I'm underpaid, who knows. :D Sucks that people in this country don't usually discuss salaries because reasons.

you are right, just redid the calculation and i am at 33k post-tax too. i guess i had the family bonus still active when i did it last time.

nobody discussed salaries in germany/UK either though. wasn't just a problem in vienna for me ;)

how are the salaries in vienna these days for software devs?

No idea since I don't live in Vienna but afaik worse than in German/Swiss tech hubs but at a lower CoL.

Whether the overall salary/CoL ratio is a better deal for you here than in the other hubs really depends on how good your salary is and how much you'll spend.

Well, there is a variety of choices, there is a good selection of excellent coworking places in Wien, Salzburg, Graz. I used to live in Vienna, so found a few interesting places her https://www.matchoffice.at/mieten/coworking/wien-city

don't think that was the topic though?

It can be a business investment. I sometimes send work to third-world countries via Fiverr, and these people definitely have decent hardware. They buy and write off their machines like any other business in the world.

OFC we do, that's just plain xenophobic. I'm a Colombian software developer and my company has given me Macbook Pro.

Guess what, there are rich people in 3rd world countries too. I once met a Bangladesh teenager on IRC, who was the son of someone popular in that country, and he did have enough money to buy pretty good parts to assemble a pc. His problem was not the money, rather the availability of the parts.

That just means apple should have done a better job securing the chip. All of these management chips have a bad history of security look up HP and Dell BMC chips as well

> True, but to be fair, the same mechanism also blocks thieves from using and/or selling stolen Macs.

That would be a fair excuse if the mechanism was under the control of the machine's rightful owner.

What do you mean? As fas as preventing a thief from using a stolen Mac, it is under the owner's control.

If it was about preventing theft, then the rightful owner could modify the keys and software without any worry.

But they can’t.

Because it’s not about giving you control, but about controlling you.

The bits about "preventing theft" and "user security" are secondary justifications. It's the same basic pattern as all authoritarianism - the main goal is the control itself, which then provides trickle-down stability.

I'll be interested in trusted hardware when I see an implementation that actually puts the device owner into the privileged position, rather than reserving it for the device manufacturer.

He mean the owner can disable it to repair his machine, and not forced on him.

The function of the anti-theft mechanism is, at its most basic level, to assert the concept of "rightful owner".

Subverting these mechanisms provides a way to prevent the system from making this assertion.

Likewise, the alleged "anti-repair" mechanism for TouchID sensors and TouchBar relate directly to protecting the system's ability to distinguish between the "rightful owner" and a thief.

"Do what I want with the machine I own" is functionally indistinguishable from "increase the resale value of the machine I stole".

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