Apple sues Canadian recycling firm for reselling 100k devices, not destroying | Hacker News Reader

Apple sues Canadian recycling firm for reselling 100k devices, not destroying

iphoneincanada.ca

110 pointsgeuis130 comments

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24663718

DeviantART Chris Bolt?

If a company pays a contractor a certain $ value to destroy/recycle equipment such that it cannot be used again, but that contractor turns around and resells it, why shouldn't the company sue for breach of contract?

If Apple wanted to resell and have those devices reused, it could have done that itself and kept some of that value. Contractor was breaking its contract pretty clearly.

Whether or not things should be reused / resold is a separate point.

beside what point ? I think it's exactly the point op is trying to make

Exactly!

The judicial point appears to be about whether or not the company was reselling devices or if (as they claim) some rogue employees were doing it for their own benefit. If they're telling it true, I wonder what (if any) laws the employees were breaking.

It is "stealing garbage" after all, and possibly beneficial environmentally.

Maybe this should be our point. I'm certainly not outraged that someone resold apple's recycle stuff. If they get away with it, great.

> Whether or not things should be reused / resold is beside the point.

Its not beside the point at all.

The reason is because, even if we say that the current behavior was against current laws, knowing what should happen tells society how we could change the laws.

Furthermore, if Apple is doing something that society doesn't like, individual people can talk about that, condemn Apple for it, and encourage others to take actions that negatively affects Apple or Apple employees, in retaliation for the bad behavior.

> why shouldn't the company sue for breach of contract?

The reason is because, as a society, we want things to be reused. So maybe we could make a law, that makes this reselling behavior legal, and removes Apple's right to sue anyone for this.

If you want to artificially limit the conversation to only one aspect, you are right -- everything else is beside the point. But I for one would expand to say that this type of destruction should be illegal. We should not be mass destroying usable devices. Force the company to ship them to a developing country or somewhere else where it won't hurt your sale of new phones as much, but stop destroying the planet for $$$.

It’s a shame that along that same line, “Cash for Clunkers” in America destroyed a lot of great cars.

Cash for Clunkers was specifically aimed at getting gas guzzling cars off the road while providing economic stimulus.

Would you have been glad to see those 14 mpg cars shipped to Mexico to be reused and the emissions just sent overseas?

What of the role cheap used cars play in helping people with little money improve their lives (for instance, by allowing them to commute to better jobs) and the positive ecological effects of raising people out of poverty? An impoverished population has less leverage against corporations and empowered corporations can lobby governments to stop meaningful environmental regulation.

It's not clear to me that 'clunkers' were a net benefit to society. Maybe getting rid of them was the correct choice. I don't know what the answer is, but I think there is probably more to consider than car emissions.

Old, cheap cars have very bad fuel economy. The same logic you use could justify why we can't prevent rural Indian farmers from burning their fields, or Brazilian loggers from deforesting and slashing/burning the Amazon. Hey, it's their only source of income, who are we to take that away from them?

Obviously there is a balance to be struck. I don't have enough data to know what the correct answer is, but I do think it's not such a simple matter that can be decided by only looking at it from a single perspective.

Cash For Clunkers also made the average price of a used car go up significantly.

This really impacts poor / low-income families and individuals- lots of people can barely afford to feed, clothe, and house themselves, and the increasing costs of transportation can really really sting, and may make it harder for them to find stable employment.

The financial stimulus of Cash For Clunkers is now long-gone, but poor people- and, for that matter, teenagers buying their first vehicle- are still feeling the aftershocks of it in the form of higher vehicle prices across the board.

> Would you have been glad to see those 14 mpg cars shipped to Mexico to be reused and the emissions just sent overseas?

If it means better lives for the people the vehicles are going to, then yes, I do.

I'm in support of burning the Amazon too, because it provides those people a livelihood.

Fair enough, there do need to be limits on this- though I suppose the native peoples of the Amazon Rain Forest should be enough reason to stop logging, but we've seen how well that's gone throughout history...

Cash for Clunkers was a terrible program: it took many affordable albeit older cars off the road. The barrier to get a car on the road for someone without means has been raised significantly.

It was ~0.2% of the US vehicle fleet. Whatever sense it did or did not make, it seems pretty unlikely that it is having any significant effect on the availability of cars 10 years later.

(yes 2 tenths of a percent, 2 vehicles out of 1000)

Believe it or not, the used car market changed drastically. I regularly shop around for cheap beater cars to fix up. Before the program, there was never a problem finding a running car for $500. It was also easier to find used parts, as cars would go through a part out process before recycling. The program required the cars to be crushed with no hope of salvaging good parts from them.

~700,000 cars were crushed.

~170,000,000 new cars have been sold in the meantime (so assume tens of millions of used car transactions related to that).

It was a blip. It's more likely that other factors are driving the change in the market.

Illegal punishable by fine or?

Please go advocate strongly for your position and get lawmakers to act. I am of that same opinion, for the good of our natural resources.

What I don't support is when people think that existing laws and rights in contracts should just be suspended or ignored because the outcome favors their side.

Go put what you want into laws. Don't take pleasure in having laws ignored. It will come to bite you sooner than you think.

A certain level of deviance and spurious or immoral lawsuits is basically required to gain the political capital required to create actual change. Thousands of laws have been passed because immoral application of existing law caused outrage and spurred lawmakers to change.

Sometimes it is immoral to abide the law.

I see, and who is to be the interpreter of that?

People are. And history is the judge.

You, me, and everybody. You have a moral obligation to resist laws when you perceive them to be immoral. This was a pretty big part of the civil rights era for instance (not to say that reusing hardware is so morally important as that, but it neatly demonstrates the principle of not resolutely adhering to all laws.)

Luckily, people aren't computers and don't need an interpreter. Use your judgement, your ethics, and common sense.

So... why do we need laws then?

While I broadly agree with your point, we don't know why these devices were meant to be recycled (and not resold). Apple may have found serious issues with the products which means re-sale wasn't an option.

It reminds me of Uber shredding 10s of thousands of electric bikes after selling JUMP because they did not want to deal with any liability risk: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52832791

> ship them to a developing country or somewhere else

Wouldn't it be worse for the planet? First - shipping these across the globe is also destroying the planet. Secondly - many developing countries are not really recycling old electronics, they just dump them into the wasteland, which makes it even worse for the planet.

Developed countries are worse. They don't recycle or reuse.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...

Yeah, lets not have them have the same luxuries as us so that they do not repeat our mistakes. \s

I think the parent comment meant that those countries could use the old phones, not recycle them—refurbish and resell.

These phones were shipped to and resold in China. I think the issue is at hand is that instead of Apple recouping the value out of the recycling stream it went elsewhere which seems like contractual theft.

> But I for one would expand to say that this type of destruction should be illegal. We should not be mass destroying usable devices.

No. That's just wrong. First, just the contract itself should be enough. The customer wants these devices destroyed, and the recycler agreed and took the money to destroy them - they can't just renege on that deal. They took the money to destroy them. Full stop - we're done here.

Why would Apple want these devices destroyed? Well .. many reasons. Maybe they can't guarantee safety of those devices. Electronics, especially with high-capacity batteries need to pass rigorous standards to be sold on the market. If Apple expects these devices to be destroyed, they will not be performing any safety checks. If one of these devices blows-up and kills a customer - who is liable?

There are other reasons why Apple may want them destroyed. Maybe these devices will put pressure on their support and warranty services. Or maybe many of these devices have structural issues that cannot be fixed fully leading to bad end-user experience with the product. Or maybe those devices on the market will eat into their market share. Or a bunch of reasons (good or bad) that neither you nor I can come up with because we don't know actually know that business (so why are you arm-chair quarterbacking this?)

>Force the company to ship them to a developing country or somewhere else where it won't hurt your sale of new phones as much, but stop destroying the planet for $$$

You can seriously impact a local or a national economy of a developing nation when a rich nations dumps crap it doesn't want on your market. Most developing nations will have anti-dumping laws as well.

> No. That's just wrong.

Why would it be wrong to make this practice illegal going forward? There are clear environmental impacts in desctroyiing functional devices.

Of course Apple has all kinds of reasons why this makes sense for them. Doesn't mean those reasons are necessarily in the interest of the public, so the public doesn't have to accept them.

>Why would it be wrong to make this practice illegal going forward?

Because it's a poorly thought-out policy created and pushed by people that may not (and clearly do not) understand the market, the space or the unintended consequences that arise from it.

>There are clear environmental impacts in desctroyiing functional devices.

And we also have clear liability and legal reasons for destroying 'functional devices'.

>Doesn't mean those reasons are necessarily in the interest of the public

Preventing devices that the manufacturer has not certified as safe from being distributed to the public is also in the interest of the public.

Every device that is currently made will end up in a landfill. Having the manufacturer and consumer responsible for these externalities is not a terrible policy, but this is not how you do it.

Electronics, especially with high-capacity batteries need to pass rigorous standards to be sold on the market.

Then the batteries should be replaceable -- who pioneered non replaceable phone batteries?

Or maybe those devices on the market will eat into their market share.

Bingo. Profits before planet.

>Then the batteries should be replaceable -- who pioneered non replaceable phone batteries?

You missed the point because you have a narrative you want to fit this situation into. The big picture is that there are valid reasons for sending devices to a landfill.

Every device that is currently made will end up in a landfill. Having the manufacturer and consumer responsible for these externalities is not a terrible policy, but this is not how you do it.

>Bingo. Profits before planet.

You're just a one-trick pony, aren't you? That you are writing this insightful commentary on a computing device that will end up in a landfill within the next 2 to 5 years, I'm sure, is lost on you.

> That you are writing this insightful commentary on a computing device that will end up in a landfill within the next 2 to 5 years

Not the parent, but I am writing this comment on Pinephone, which definitely will not end up in a landfill within the next 2 to 5 years, because it's openness enables unlimited support. See also: Librem 5 with lifetime support.

I am the parent, and I am typing this on a second hand Thinkpad. That's the problem with Apple users -- they can't see that there are better ways to consume and are unable to "think different".

This is not the issue at hand. People are looking at this and trying to tie it to all kinds of things, like environmental policy, or the right to repair. All of those are valid issues that have specific policy goals behind them but his is much more straightforward. Apple contracted a recycler to destroy the devices, and those devices made it out to the market, breaking contractual obligations. That's it. For some reason, you want to nitpick specific reasons I listed why a company may want to destroy devices, but that's not the point. You and I don't know the reasons, don't know the space, don't know the business, don't know what we don't know, we're just two guys speculating on things we don't have experience in.

I am confident in arguing, however, that in whatever regulatory regime we are in, there will be times and good reasons for destroying or landfilling devices.

I'm happy you have a secondhand Thinkpad. And I'm happy you got an endorphin rush for telling people on the internet that you have a secondhand Thinkpad - but you are going to landfill that device. Also, I hate Apple devices. I think OSX is overrated, and both OSX and iOS have terrible ergonomics. And yes, Mac computers and laptops are overpriced and their quality varies from year to year.

> This is not the issue at hand.

> Apple contracted a recycler to destroy the devices, and those devices made it out to the market, breaking contractual obligations.

There are definitely broken obligations, but who invented those obligations in the first place and why? Apple did it for profit and user control, against environment and ethics. This is the actual problem here.

>but who invented those obligations in the first place and why?

Contract law. If you want to change the entire legal regime underpinning these kinds of contracts, that's a big (and separate) discussion.

>Apple did it for profit and user control, against environment and ethics

You don't know that. You're speculating. It's not clear that this policy against environmental initiatives or it is unethical. Besides, environmental concerns need to be balanced with other factors. Our company contracts IronMountain to destroy old disk drives - our interpretation of this is that IronMountain will in fact securely destroy those drives and not resell them on the market, EVEN IF that would be more friendly to the environment.

The big picture is that there are valid reasons for sending devices to a landfill.

I agree, but a dangerous battery should not be one of them because batteries should be replaceable.

In the end any reasons Apple might have to want them destroyed are just because they don't have to face many of the externalities of dealing with their residues because they ship them to thirld world countries, and they also don't pay many of the externalities of producing new hardware because they produce it in a country with poor regulations.

In any sustainable system Apple should either be the first interested in repairing those devices or forced to do it.

>In the end any reasons Apple might have to want them destroyed are just because they don't have to face many of the externalities of dealing with their residues because they ship them to thirld world countries, and they also don't pay many of the externalities of producing new hardware because they produce it in a country with poor regulations.

You can create a policy to price the externalities of recycling the electronic device (and that may be a necessary policy), but to be clear, it will be shared between Apple and the consumer through higher-prices - which will impact the poor disproportionally. Maybe that's a good thing, but I always find it interesting that people just point the finger at the manufacturer and not the consumer that ultimately buys the products and tosses it (usually without properly recycling it). It's the same kind of garbage as trying to blame Exxon for extracting petroleum and ignoring the SUV in your driveway.

>In any sustainable system Apple should either be the first interested in repairing those devices or forced to do it.

You don't even know what's wrong with these devices.

> We should not be mass destroying usable devices

I'm fine with making companies pay for externalities of manufacturing, but if you own something, it's yours to do with as you wish.

> I'm fine with making companies pay for externalities of manufacturing,

Counterpoint: This may not actually cause companies to change their behaviour, it might simply create market barriers, which will be beneficial for companies with the necessary capital - i.e., it will just mean you have to be rich enough to be allowed to pollute the environment.

> but if you own something, it's yours to do with as you wish.

This is not true. We put restrictions on all kinds of actions if they have a high likelihood of causing damage. This is why you're allowed to own fertilizer but are still not allowed to build a bomb with it. This is also why you need a driver's license to operate a vehicle.

> This is not true...

You're technically mostly right, but you're also comparing building a bomb to Apple recycling old phones. Your rights end where my rights begin. Driving a car without a license is an example of that. You don't have a right to an iPhone.

It’s not really “artificially limiting” the conversation to one aspect so much as it is logically limiting the conversation to the only truly pertinent aspect. “After they’ve been shipped to a facility to have them destroyed” is way too late to talk about if maybe they ought to have been reused instead.

They are usable in the market they were sold in and the environment is better protected if their disposal is done in a professional manner which includes accounting for disposition of any hazardous materials.

By sending to a "country of need" we immediately run the risk that end up in the countryside or disposed of improperly and that unless you just happen to land in a country with sufficient infrastructure to even support the devices they just end up as curiosities.

It is very easy to be altruistic when no analysis is involved in determining the true cost of such actions. As in, many ideas sound great on paper but are so unfeasible to actually worse than doing nothing.

To be clear, they were 'destroying' them to salvage reusable parts to move downstream to refurbishing shops to use to refurbish Apple devices, according to the article.

In the end it's very similar to how fast fashion brands burn their unsold merchandise every year because they can't sell it under certain price as that would damage their brand. As long as consumers will pay for it it will keep happening. Just capitalism at work.

"But I for one would expand to say that this type of destruction should be illegal. We should not be mass destroying usable devices."

That's perfectly fine and I agree, but this has zero bearing on the current case.

Apple doesn't appear to be suing for breach of contract. Apple is suing for damages due to decreased sales from GEEP's theft of 100,000 devices.

Apple filed that suit in January, and GEEP filed a suit against Apple in July that GEEP didn't steal the devices but three rogue employees.

And why shouldn't the media widely publicize how Apple goes the extra mile to ruin the environment?

Why doesn't the media publicize how the laws and Congress are failing to protect the environment? Why blame the companies that are simply acting according to the rulebook they've been given? You're outraged at the wrong party. And no subtle shaming of one company is going to change the incentives that govern 1000s of others.

> Why doesn't the media publicize how the laws and Congress are failing to protect the environment? Why blame the companies that are simply acting according to the rulebook they've been given?

Because finding the laws that protect the environment is much harder than seeking the limits of the law?

Aren't you making just completely wild speculation here? Isn't it possible that actively recycling those devices is far better for the environment than allowing them to be resold to China and/or end up in landfill? I thought Apple had one of the better records on the environment of all the computer manufacturers. Are you aware of reasons to believe otherwise?

> Isn't it possible that actively recycling those devices is far better for the environment than allowing them to be resold to China and/or end up in landfill?

In one scenario, a device keeps being used, it just changes hands. In another, it is recycled, using up energy and materials into making new products out of it, and throwing away what can't be salvaged. And you think it's wild speculation to claim the first scenario is less taxing on the environment than the second?

Oh but it's explained by the completely sensible deduction that, if you sell someone a working device, they might throw it in a landfill. Why is the 2nd owner more likely to landfill it than the 1st? Does Apple vet buyers for environmentalism before it'll sell phones to them?

Indeed I do see your argument as wild speculation. Apple sells refurbished devices. There’s a reason Apple isn’t reselling the devices it sent to GEEP. You have no idea why these devices were tagged for recycling, no idea what condition they were in, no idea who they’re being sold to, no idea how long they’d last, and no idea what would happen to them afterward. Your first “scenario” completely ignored what happens after a resold device’s life ends.

In a third scenario, the devices are sold overseas to people who recycle less often than Americans. In a fourth scenario, they’re sold to business that are tearing the devices apart, pulling out a couple of tiny components and scrapping everything else.

> Why is the 2nd owner more likely to landfill it than the 1st?

This question is irrelevant because 100% of the devices that ended up at GEEP were supposed to be recycled, contractually. If there’s any non-zero chance at all that the second owner won’t recycle, then it’s guaranteed that more devices will end up in landfill due to GEEP breaking it’s contract and illegally reselling used devices.

I see you didn’t bother to address my question why you think Apple has a bad record on the environment, compared to other companies that make similar products. I realize their environmental responsibility report is part marketing, yet they have in fact been putting some of their money where their mouth is. Some manufacturers don’t produce any such reports, and haven’t bothered to even try to make their products recyclable. https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Pr...

> Your first “scenario” completely ignored what happens after a resold device’s life ends.

Why would anything different happen to a "resold" than a "sold" device? Is there any market that Apple doesn't sell to because their consumers don't recycle enough? No, there is not, and I am beyond tired of dealing with the pretzel-like contortions of reasoning you twist yourself into to believe continued use of a device is somehow more harmful than stripping it for parts, for the sole reason that money changed hands without Apple getting their cut.

And whether Apple on the whole is better for the environment than other companies is a different question than whether this practice is bad. But with introducing wasteful technologies like AirPods, soldering SSDs and RAM to motherboards, and fight against right to repair, I'll take their environmentalism with a massive grain of salt.

> Why would anything different happen to a "resold" than a "sold" device?

Did you miss the other possible scenarios I offered, or are you certain they cannot happen? (If so, then why?) Did you not understand the point that recycling 100% of the devices might outweigh some reuse plus some portion ending up as landfill? Do you believe that devices ending up in landfill is worse than devices being recycled?

Why are you assuming the same thing would happen to a device on resale, compared to first sale? Do you know who GEEP was selling them to, and what for? I would guess that statistically the second life is much shorter, especially for devices that Apple decided couldn't be resold by their refurb program. I don't know that for certain, and I won't insist on it because I don't like to make wild assumptions, but if you believe otherwise, I'd love to hear what evidence you've got.

> for the sole reason that money changed hands without Apple getting their cut.

This speculation doesn't stand up to a reality check. Apple already re-uses devices: they sell refurbs! The second life you're advocating already happens to all the devices they can, and they already make money doing that and it's better for the environment. Why are you assuming that Apple is recycling devices for financial reasons, when it costs them money to recycle, and it would net them more money to resell these devices if they could? Why are you assuming these devices even have a second life in them, when Apple already sells used devices?

> I am beyond tired of dealing with the pretzel-like contortions of reasoning you twist yourself into to believe continued use of a device is somehow more harmful than stripping it for parts

This makes it pretty clear that you haven't understood my questions. I have not claimed that recycling is better than re-use. In fact I believe re-use is better than recycling, environmentally speaking. So I think we agree on that. What I'm asking is why you're so certain that this specific case is one where Apple is doing the wrong thing environmentally. That's not clear to me at all. It seems very possible that recycling here is much more environmentally responsible than re-selling. It really depends on more specifics than we have at hand; it matters what the condition of the devices is, it matters who they're being sold to, it matters what they'll get used for, how long they'll last, and what happens after that. What do you know that I don't know? I haven't seen anything yet to convince me that your certainty is backed by any evidence.

> I'll take their environmentalism with a massive grain of salt.

Could you please identify computer brands that are better, and link to their environmental records? What are the actionable alternatives that are more environmentally friendly?

If I pay a killer to have someone killed, and he breaks the contract I can sue him?

This is turbo capitalism gone wrong. Unfortunately destroying the planet is only morally wrong, but not legally in many cases. It just tells me that I am right never buying any of Apple's products.

In France they intended to make it illegal to destroy new products. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/04/france-to-ban-... No idea whether that is still current, I am not from France.

> In France they intended to make it illegal to destroy new products. […] No idea whether that is still current, I am not from France.

It will be, for all products outside of food, starting in 2022.

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2019/12/13/loi-antiga...

I'm pretty surprised considering what the fashion industry is to France.

Sure Apple can do whatever they legally can to maximize their profit, but society could decide that sometimes what is legal needs to change, or the loopholes need to be fixed.

So we can complain when we disagree with such behavior we consider is very bad and ask for legal changes? I think Apple does has enough money to hire lawyers and PR people to defend itself from some complaints and can also lobby against better laws - so they don't need fans to spend effort trying to shift the topic into what is legal or not from what should be legal and fair.

Go and fix the loopholes! Get Congress to act. I wish they would.

But in the meantime, respect existing laws and rights in contracts.

> But in the meantime, respect existing laws and rights in contracts.

A great way of changing laws is to purposefully break them and undermine them, actually.

If people really do not like a law, then we can encourage others to break them, and make these bad laws difficult to enforce.

If a bad law can't be enforced, then it may as well not exist.

Society can change such laws only when there is an open discussion that is exactly doing that, not-respecting the laws and rights in contracts.

Contracts can be found to be unlawful. But until then we should publish and share this kind of articles, if many people know the shit Apple.,Google,Amazon and others do then this kind of laws will be proposed.

so let's share this not because it is illegal now but to debate if it should be illegal to prevent recycling and repairing.

"Contractor was breaking its contract pretty clearly."

Not in this case. Only when they could have prevented that employees were reselling the devices.

It looks like GEEP agrees with Apple and they are going after the people who resold the devices.

What you say may be legally correct but unethical. I am not sure how Apple can ethically defend their stand given the current economic environment and in general from an environmental impact perspective. Reduce and reuse are as important as recycling.

Unless there is a risk in using these devices which outweigh the environmental and economic benefits, this seems to not be a good move by Apple.

If I understand they'd need to show harm from the breach of contract. Even though they may have been prescient enough to say "you must mulch these devices" if they don't say why and they just get resold with no harm I would be surprised if the legal system allows the suit.

If the company were instead offering secure data disposal this would be surprising. General disposal no.

I know Apple will not re-sell devices obtained in a buyback/trade-in deal, but being confronted with the reality of it like this makes me think.

After boiling off the pragmatic trade offs, I'm left being slightly baffled by discounts Apple has decided are still economic with a trade-in. Either the margins are that big that it is worth the points with consumers, or there is actually an equal advantage to the discount in removing a perfectly fine device from the second hand market.

The economics of "platform-providers" are very interesting and quite relevant.

If Apple doesn't resell trade-ins, why do they buy them and where do refurbished iphones come from?

Refurbished look as new, which isn't hte case for trade-ins. Refurbised will typically be new products that were returned within the return window, or may be customers that brough something for repair and were offered a new device to speed up the process.

iPhone 11 Pro Max is estimated to cost $500 [1], but retails at $1100 for the 64GB model [2]. Based on their public numbers [3], the most you can get is $450, so they're still ahead if they offer a trade-in discount and just dispose of the old phone. More importantly, they either get to accelerate a potential sale (if the phone is still working) or they get to compete more aggressively on price with high-end android phones

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/how-much-does-it-cost-to-m...

[2] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-11-pro

[3] https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in

This costing is way off, given that iPhone 4 era iphones did cost like 40 bucks.

The aftermarket for electronics is very cheap. They dont want to compete with their own/old products that cost 1/10 the price but for almost the same value.

What step in the 100% carbon neutral Apple plan is this?

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/07/apple-commits-to-be-1...

I'm surprised Apple didn't perma-Activation Lock the phones after sending them off. They do that with the demo phones in the stores, although that might be a MDM policy or something.

Why would they do that? Apple still earns some money from these devices via the app store. Locking the device will just piss the users and may harm Apple's reputation. And they can still get more money if they win the lawsuit, which is very likely. It's all win for Apple.

In a functioning society, Apple would be the one paying a fine for ordering the destruction of 100k devices that were easily refurbishable, not the company (admittedly in gross violation of contract) that took the matter into their own hands.

Is there a reason that Apple wanted them recycled instead of reselling them itself?

I'd assume to avoid the competition -- they absolutely know the numbers on revenue per device and can guess at services revenue from low cost devices. It's way lower than selling new phones.

If one were charitable, perhaps they couldn't be refurbed to Apple's standard. I don't believe they deserve the benefit of doubt there.

But that’s just cargo cutting statistics, mistaking correlation for causation.

If a person doesn’t have money and therefore buys a used phone and doesn’t spend on services, forcing them to buy a new phone won’t make them magically have money for services.

But it will make them spend more money at Apple -- the device purchase price.

Or maybe they just get an android then and are out of the ecosystem

Why do you assume a consumer buying a low-cost used Apple device would prefer a new device over a low-cost competitor's device? Obviously they already chose based on price.

Do you think it's possible Apple believes that reselling devices will result in lower recycling rates? Is it possible that reselling devices that can't be refurbished to their standards could be a safety or liability issue?

Why are you making judgements about what benefit of the doubt a company deserves based on an assumption on top of an assumption?

> Why do you assume a consumer buying a low-cost used Apple device would prefer a new device over a low-cost competitor's device? Obviously they already chose based on price.

Apple has relatively high repurchase rates, crossing market segments.

> Why are you making judgements

Their focus on preventing third-party repairs to their devices, preferring to sell expensive repairs or force customers to purchase new devices.

Secondarily, their focus on dollar extraction. Upselling chargers or cables; using their app-store to collect a 30% tax on all transactions, even to the point of attempting to blackmail wordpress for a revenue share. (The fact they walked it back after negative publicity doesn't change that they tried.)

I guess it's about "value". If people can get working Apple devices for cheap, why would they bother paying them new? But also I wonder, in what state where the devices Apple sent for "recycling" if they were still able to operate normally? Maybe the real scandal is there.

Terms and conditions with customers in terms of what will happen to devices turned in to be recycled.

As others have said, some could be to control the supply of used devices to sell newer devices.

It could also be that the devices were some degree of defective, and Apple didn't want bad devices out there that could hurt its reputation.

I wrote before about this few times https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21895534 Some people were not believing me in earlier posts. Now they have their proof.

I can say that Apple was actively practicing this as early as iPhone 4.

They at least once tried to threaten online marketplaces selling wholesale refurbished Apple iStuff.

Alibaba prohibited wholesale of refubished electronics specifically because of that, knowing this from an ex Alibaba employee: https://rule.alibaba.com/rule/detail/2047.htm look at point 17.3.

As I understand, they no longer actively enforce that now.

> The iPhone maker found 18% of devices shipped to GEEP were active on wireless carrier networks.

I'm sure other 'recyclers' played the same game, but this vendor was dumb enough to sell whole units with the logic boards or other remotely identifiable serialized parts.

Even a broken logic board has value, but the recycler should've destroyed the serialized parts before sending them off.

This is done or used to be, with paperback books.

Instead of shipping the entire book back, a bookstore would cut or rip off only the cover and ship it to the publisher for a refund. It was then considered illegal to resell the cover-less book.

For magazines the distributor or store would fill out a "certificate of destruction" to receive credit, and then dispose of the unsold magazines.

> The iPhone maker found 18% of devices shipped to GEEP were active on wireless carrier networks.

How is Apple able to get such numbers?

Edit: i am stupid - all Apple devices phone home because you must use apple services with apple devices. I was confused by the "wireless carrier network" part.

Based on the article it seems like they got the number from IMEI activations or something along those lines, not via phoning home to Apple-ran services (since then they could have gotten iPad numbers as well)

> While some devices like Wi-Fi iPads won’t show up on carrier networks, which Apple says makes the total number of stolen products higher.

activation lock is an apple ran service. At first i thought they got the data from the carriers and that sounded very ridiculous. That's what confused me.

> How is Apple able to get such numbers?

Because iphones OTA software has a hidden feature that "phones home" with serial number.

Can't believe people think Apple is wrong here. You're arguing your ideals instead of looking at this case like the contract dispute that it is.

Isn't reuse the best version of recycling? Who could have thought Apple was so anti-environmental.

Recycling is better for your brand than the environment. Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales.

Reuse might dilute some brands, for others it’s a key strength which drives sales.

I can’t name a tech company this applies to though, which is a shame.

That's a good point. I drive high mileage Toyotas because I love their legendary reliability. I've never bought a new car. I suppose the advancement of the technology is a bigger / faster factor in tech.

It's obviously a much better business model to sell you a new car every year by artificially making the old one break.

> I can’t name a tech company this applies to though

It definitely applies to professional camera equipment, where the cost of buying all your lenses, filters, flashes, and everything else every couple of years is actually beyond almost everyone's budgets. Professionals and serious hobbyists usually upgrade their camera bodies every 2-5 years but often keep lenses around for at least a decade or two if not more.

The entry-level cameras are another story though, and are littered with plastic trash lenses that usually malfunction a month or two before their warranty expires.

Correct.... Not sure why you are being downvoted

There is also a desire for apple to quality control, and not have lots of used devices around that will need to be serviced again at some point.

> Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales

Depends on the customer. I would never buy an Apple device and neither would most of my friends, because they have diluted their brand by their long term unethical practices.

Unfortunately they still have too many customers who think differently or not at all. Once California is mostly uninhabitable it will change. But that will not happen the next couple of quarters, so they continue.

Does that explain Apple's refurb program? https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished

No, it explains the lawsuit mentioned in the article.

Does it? How so? Can you clarify the connection? Apple does re-use hardware, so isn’t that evidence they don’t agree with you? Doesn’t it mean they believe reuse is good for their brand and not diluting sales? Maybe - since they do both (reuse and recycle) - this has nothing to do with choosing one over the other, and it is more about choosing between recycling vs landfill, ensuring proper managed disposal?

They're suing for damages (to them, Apple) because of reuse in lieu of recycling. Not including the money they made. Apple believes this act damaged them. The connection is laughably obvious. Unless Apple shipped unsecured private or proprietary information on these devices to the recycling company, I don't know what other possibility you can think of. Your counterargument is a resale market entirely controlled by them wherein they can pick and choose every item.

They’re suing for the amount that GEEP made breaking their contract, plus some punitive damages. That seems like it might be par for the course in a contract dispute. Breaking the contract does damage Apple in a number of ways. You seem to be making assumptions about which ones they care about most, without evidence, and in contradiction to what they’ve done and said.

You said “Recycling is better for your brand than the environment. Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales.” How does Apple’s control of their resale (reuse) market prove your point here? It seems like the point you just brought up contradicts what you said earlier. Control of their resale market is evidence that it’s an important channel, that they care about it, and that they have strong reasons to prefer resale to recycling, no?

Compare the numbers recycled or otherwise disposed of to the numbers reused. they will only reuse through their own channel so they can pick and choose the reuse that will strengthen their premium brand image. It's the same practice as having licensing for repair and distribution. They only want people that they think help their brand identity and image. Otherwise they would be fine with general right to repair.

Fully agree. Apple has always been anti-environmental in just about every design decision they make.

Soldered SSDs? Proprietary connectors that change every couple of years? Lack of ability to take old mobile devices and run recent open-source OSes on them? Non-user-replaceable batteries? Everything about the ecosystem is designed to get people to buy new devices every 2 years.

I don't own any Apple devices. I just upgraded my desktop computer's SSD from 2TB to 4TB for a grand total of $400 and nothing more in manufacturing impact than the SSD itself and a cardboard box for shipping. I have a PC case with modern internals but a 10-year-old power supply and a 15-year-old case. How's that for NOT creating unnecessary trash on the planet?

With Apple I would have had to trash the PC and buy a new one because they solder the goddamn SSDs to the motherboard.

You make a lot of fair points, but I think this is off the mark:

> Proprietary connectors that change every couple of years?

Is there any connector in particular you are thinking of that has been cycled out in just two years? All the ones I can think of lasted at least most of a decade. Some such as USB and the 30-pin connector lasted much, much longer than that (the 30-pin connector honestly lasted a long time for how crappy it was).

Just look at the dongles almost every mac user religiously carries with them.

That's just because of USB-C, but USB-C is a standard that other manufacturers use that might have a 10-year lifespan. Why iPhones don't use USB-C is the bigger question.

There's definitely some hyperbole in that statement. In the past decade, there's been:

- iPod 30-pin

- Magsafe

- Lightning

Only one of those (Lightning) is still in use, and it was a replacement for the circa 2001 iPod 30-pin. Magsafe was abandoned in favor of the non-proprietary USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 3. Most are predicting that Lightning will go the way of the dodo in favor of Type-C in another generation or two of iPhones.

Thunderbolt 2 and Mini DisplayPort sometimes get mistaken as proprietary because they were mostly a Mac thing, but in reality it was an Intel thing. A handful of PCs had Thunderbolt 2, but it never really caught on, likely due to licensing fees. Hilariously enough I've seen a number of non-Apple devices equipped with Mini DisplayPort now that Apple has abandoned it.

I guess there's the iPad Smart Connector, which has changed a couple of times in recent memory, but practically nobody but Apple made devices for it anyway. Most third part peripherals connect via Bluetooth, or now with the Pro and Air USB-C.

Magsafe was introduced in 2006 and the last products with it were replaced in 2017. Lightning was introduced in 2008. Thunderbolt 2 is definitely the shortest-lived one (clearly due to a big change in technical direction with TB3) but even that lasted four years from 2011–2015.

Realistically everyone else has gone through as many connection changes. Android had mini USB, micro USB, and now USB-C. Really, the only thing Apple does special is move quickly and remove old tech promptly. Other tech have a more gradual approach by virtue of much more diverse selections.

> Magsafe was introduced in 2006 and the last products with it were replaced in 2017

There were 2 physically incompatible magsafes.

Magsafe 2 was made more slender because Apple somehow couldn't imagine that they'd be making an even thinner laptop in the future.

And then the fact that the cable was hard-wired into the wall wart...

Fair point! MagSafe 2 was introduced in 2012. 6 years after MagSafe 1, and 5 years before USB-C. 6 years is double the median lifetime of a laptop in that period IIRC and MagSafe 2 was ditched for a charger that is included on many other devices, so it doesn’t really cause the same churn.

Some of this is to make devices lighter, more compact, and maybe even have a better battery life. But yes, it comes at the cost of being user-repairable.

I had this same reaction, but we can argue for the other side of it. It's highly likely that these devices have reliability problems, used-up batteries, etc...but are still being sold as grey market/relatively new devices. That would mean harm to Apple's reputation for quality, I guess.

> It's highly likely that these devices have reliability problems, used-up batteries, etc

The problem here are that these parts aren't interchangeable.

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