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Comment by truth_ | Hacker News Reader

I knew of a guy who "bought" Apple Laptops from Amazon and used it as his DJ laptop and worked some gigs where the Apple laptop was a status symbol of how big a deal he is. He used to perform in small town and rural India and organizers paid him ₹3k-30k per night. He returned his laptop after doing 3-4 such gigs in the "marriage season" in India. He did this 7-8 times from different addresses and different accounts.

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After 21 gigs (3 gigs * 7 laptops) he would've made around 21k USD (presuming he was making at least 10k rupees per night, which between 3k-30k would've made sense). Seems like at that point you just buy the darn laptop, it's not like you need something more than an Air for DJing, and 1/21th of your revenue to be legal seems like not a bad idea.

I think part of the point was he always had the current model.

You’re missing the point. Why buy something if you don’t have to? That’s the reasoning here. You don’t spend money, your product doesn’t depreciate, you always have a brand new product. You only have to deal with your guilt and ethics or lack thereof.

He is a scammer. He had no DJ training either. To most people living in rural India, "DJ" is just loud beats added to an existing song and abruptly cutting them and playing another one. He is not a real DJ, and he had bills to pay.

No, he mostly got paid ₹3-₹4k per night. Purchasing power of rural India is very low.

30k/night is about $400 - that’s decent enough money to afford to buy a fully-loaded MacBook Pro after only a handful of gigs.

If you're living gig to gig, spending the earnings from a couple may not be an option. Doesn't justify what's being done, I'm just arguing against this single argument.

Not if you have bills to pay.

Only if someone else pays for your living expenses.

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