Why does Apple think my M1 Pro MacBook Pro is suddenly worth nothing?

> Do better, Apple - if you say you're leading the way in helping the environment, especially when it comes to the disposal of old devices, an excessive drop in value when trading these in is not going to be a success.

author has belief he owed more $ than what apple offers on 15 month old machine.

they likely have specific margin per sale. after doing trade and factoring in costs.. not worth offering more when newer apple chips available that customer want.

and weird belief apple should support environment by giving more money for old machine. seriously?

if you care about environment you should hang onto your old machine yourself and control you consumerism appetite.

english not me first language but this article so poor, makes reader think..can anyone work at tech radar? they pay these author per article? lack of logical thinking.. author admits no plan to actually trade in machine so clear to me they just amplifying this non story for controversy and clicks.

> Do better, Apple - if you say you're leading the way in helping the environment, especially when it comes to the disposal of old devices, an excessive drop in value when trading these in is not going to be a success.

Actually it will be a success - you will own the machine for longer and not buy the shinny new thing 18 months later ... or it will be a more attractive price for a second owner to get a good use out of.

Do better author.

Value is relative.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)) > economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent.

An obsolete Mac is marginally beneficial to Apple, who manufactures thousands of new Macs every quarter. Thus, their valuation of it is much lower - reasonably so - than the valuation that an everyday consumer would place on it.

I, for instance, have a M1 Macbook Air. As such, I wouldn't offer you more than $200 for your laptop: simply because I don't need a better laptop and the only thing that would prompt me to buy it from you is an outrageously good deal. #200 is your Mac's economic value to me.

On the other hand, a consumer who needs a laptop and who has no laptop would be willing to pay much more for your laptop than me or Apple. Their valuation of your laptop will be much closer to its actual standing, and would probably offer you a much larger sum, ~$1k.

Addendum: It's naive to force or pressure Apple to pay more for a laptop than its economic value to them. You're looking for a high economic value in the place where it would be lowest. Do better, Daryl Baxter, find someone who actually needs your laptop if you want to sell it. Don't complain about how you tried to sell it to the people who didn't need it and didn't get an offer you couldn't reasonably expect.

I guess that $2400 M1 machine is a 14 inch machine with 16GB memory and 1TB SSD.

Looking at https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/1tb-2021-14-inch-..., Apple sells that machine refurbished, for $1929.

So, the question is whether it is reasonable that Apple would take about $1000 for refurbishing + margin.

I think one could answer that question with yes because Apple is Apple and spends more time and money on refurbishing than your average second-hand seller.

They wipe the disk, install the latest OS, take the machine apart to clean it, if needed replace parts (and that’s likely needed. People with machines in pristine condition likely will get more for their machine than Apple pays elsewhere), put it through their regular testing process and put it in a new box.

Few of that will be automated, so it easily could cost a couple of hundred dollars (complete guess). They also will want a reasonable margin, which, for Apple, will easily be in the 20% range.

Also, the new M2 machine with the same size screen, RAM and SSD costs about the same as the M1 one cost a year ago. For about 25% more than that refurbished machine, you can buy a new one that’s about that amount faster.

That likely makes reselling the M1 machines at that price harder.

This is a lemon market. They have to account for the fact that people will trade in machines they couldn't sell elsewhere, meaning they're in the worst shape.

If the machine is in a good condition, you'll need to sell it on some marketplace that will value it individually.

The author wants apple to "Do Better" in Green/Sustainability terms, by offering More Money to buy back Last Years' Laptops. Author also stated he was planning to keep the laptop for a few more years to get his money's worth.

If Apple offers Garbage Prices for Old Models, doesn't this encourage Users to Keep Using Old Hardware? As opposed to making it economically attractive to buy New Laptops every year with Great Discounts for trade-ins?

I'm using an iPhone 6s because I can't be bothered to spend $1000 for the new models. If Apple offered me $400 tradein, a new phone would cost me only $600, making it Much Easier for me to consume new Battery/Metal/Semiconductor of a New Phone. The most Environmentally-Friendly thing for Author to do would be to use his Laptop until the Battery/Ports fail, then replace those parts, and continue using the Old Laptop until Apple no longer offers Software Support on it.

I think trade-in offers were wildly subsidized as part of marketing/sales efforts over the past year or two. Plus there was likely a very strong secondary market taking everything they could get.

I've noticed similar dives in trade-in value from the Google Store as well. Across the board it seems that trade-in offers from the major vendors are about 50% of what they were just 3mo ago.

Very small sample size, but it's interesting other people are noticing this as well. I wonder if we're not seeing a similar impact as we are seeing with the used car market bubble popping.

Apple is in the business of selling new computers not buying back used ones. They are never going to offer a good price for buy backs. Go somewhere else if you want to sell your computer.

Why does anyone think first-party trade-in programs are ever in good faith? There's zero incentive for them to be. They say, plainly and directly on the trade-in site, that they estimate offering "up to $670" for a MBP.

If that's a bad deal, don't sell it back to the company that'll make the highest margin off it?

Wouldnt the poor trade in value dovetail with environmental values? The increased real cost is likely going to discourage you from trading in (where does your old one go?) and making do for longer.

Side note - maybe what the author wants is to lease a mac instead of purchasing? I guess some people do that with cars and trade up every few years.

Risk to reward. They've determined that the risk your machine is a lemon is much higher than the reward of selling it. Anyone selling such a thing would be much better off on swappa, ebay, and similar places. The author seems to think that apple cares about the environment and chides them; everyone knows apple is in business to make money, and will prefer that to any environmental benefits.

I don't know. Why did Funcoland only offer me $15 for a game I bought the month for $50 before as a kid? But at least they didn't give me a song and dance about how they were doing me a favor and the burden of sheltering the item they were buying from me like on Pawn Stars.

What is the depreciation on a car in terms of trade-in value? You always get less as a trade-in than if you sold it to a third party. The reason you do it is convenience and inertia.

I tried selling my iPhone 13 mini of 1 year old. Apple wanted to give me "up to 390" euro's. I ended up selling it for 600 euro's to someone via a selling website.

I didn’t find this article that compelling. As a rule I tend not to listen to anyone who says “do better” in a serious context.