Abusive is a stretch. If you don't like it.. you're free to not buy from them?
Google hangouts / gmail works fine on iOS and android. Same for whatsapp, zoom, signal, etc. Heck, even microsoft teams.
Apple has more money than any of those companies, and yet also has the wildly most anti-competitive restrictive software, ensuring almost all of its services (apple music/books/iMessage/facetime/etc etc) more or less require all your devices to be apple devices.
I don't know if it's abusive, but it's certainly putting more chains on the user than any of the other similar ecosystems.
I'm running Windows laptops / desktops these days, and drive an iPhone and the sun hasn't exploded.
I know people who have been victims of actual abuse; it's not remotely the same thing as paying too much for a laptop.
It's not just paying too much, it's one of the world's most valuable mega-corporations asking you to pay too much. If it were a boutique shop I wouldn't call it abusive. It's a combination of the bad behavior and the exercise of raw power that makes it so.
Sure, your iPhone doesn't connect as seamlessly to your Windows computer as it would a Mac, but those aren't network effects, thats vertical integration.
Nobody is forcing you to buy a Mac, and Apple themselves are intentionally overcharging for upgrades on the basis that: "If you really need it, you'll pay for it". Most people don't need it but will buy the upgrades anyway then complain that they're too expensive.
I'm aware that it limits the longevity of the devices, but that might also be intentional here, not abusive though. Just a bit bare-faced profit seeking. Which seems to be working because, as you point out, it's one of the worlds most valuable mega-corporations.
If someone else comes out with good premium laptops I'll move over happily, but for now the best laptop you can buy is unfortunately a macbook, and they've decided that upgrades are worth this money, if you don't agree then the answer is to simply not upgrade, or avoid the devices entirely.
Microsoft is also a deeply abusive corporation. The discussion was not about them, though.
The same word we use for raping kids?
Give off.
> If it were a boutique shop I wouldn't call it abusive. It's a combination of the bad behavior and the exercise of raw power that makes it so.
I was raped as a kid, friend. Many times.
and many of my friends were, which is why I would prefer we keep words with strong meaning quite strong.
A company operating as a company, not even unethically in this case is too far away.
By and large, the people who buy these products are freely choosing to do so. To claim that, for those people, the price is "too high" is equivalent to telling them "you shouldn't be willing to pay that much for that product".
I think it's perfectly fine for me or any other individual to hold the opinion that their products are overpriced, but I think it would be at best borderline presumptuous for me to attempt to tell someone else what they should or should not value.
Not to mention that design decisions have surely been made to ensure this segmentation works that destroy repairability - so much for environmental friendliness. It is difficult not to feel Apple's contempt for its customers when it has been actively crippling the usefulness of its devices to squeeze some more profits.
To Apple's credit, it has established an effective monopoly over the market of _decent_ laptops fair and square and OS X seems to be less of a malware than whatever is Windows 10/11. I am not _that_ salty to pay the premium.
I'm far more interested in improving our lot by altering the environment (e.g. by promoting memory-safe programming languages, or by pressuring corporations to not be abusive) than in appealing to notions like choice.
I feel cornered when my social circle all use iPhones and then they want to Airdrop me something and I just can't receive it. I'm an Android man, I cannot stand the blue pill Apple feels to me.
Peer pressure is a serious threat, presented in the form of... abusive behaviour indeed.