up with PyGUI!

[Alex Martelli]

Jorge Godoy <godoy at ieee.org> wrote:
   ...
> >> I remember iBooks starting at something like US$ 2100.00...  That's more
> >> than half of the Dell :-)
> >
> > iBooks start at about HALF what you remember.
> 
> Not here.  :-)  As I said, I wish we had the prices you do in Europe and
> in the US. 

They're higher here (at today's exchange rates, 1467 vs 1099 for an
entry-level iBook).  My solution, as I mentioned, is buying in the US.
Apple of course tries to stop any attempt to go around their market
segmentation, but for portable products that's not easy for them.

> > Why Apple chooses to price stuff cheap in richer countries, US foremost,
> > and dearer the poorer the country, I dunno.
> 
> I think their logistics cost is lower in the US than in the rest of the
> world.  Their market is bigger there too. 

Convenient excuses for Apple's market-fragmentation strategy,
unfortunately (for them) easily shown as such.  All iBooks are shipped
from Taiwan, for example -- getting them to US, Brazil or the
Netherlands is basically the same.  The quarrel 'du jour' against Apple,
to give another example, is about the fact that iTunes song downloads
cost 20% more in the UK than Germany or France, and the latter two
countries won't even let you buy unless you can give a French/German
address and credit card (in Italy you can't buy from any of these
stores... unless you're lucky enough to have an address and credit card
in the appropriate country...).  This is arguably against Europe's
single-market laws, and since we're talking about downloads over the net
the "logistics" argument is laid bare for the feeble excuse it is.
Indeed Apple's response that I've seen is not about trying to argue that
it costs more to push bits to London than to Paris, but rather that
iTunes song prices should be compared, not with the prices of the same
song in different countries, but rather with the prices of other songs
from competitors in the same country.  In other words, Apple is charging
all the market will bear, segmenting markets ruthlessly to do so, even
when they have to break laws in order to scrounge extra profits that
way.  I think it's quite a myopic attitude, eroding any goodwill from
people who LIKE their products and turning it into rage and loathing.

If and when the costs of delivery are higher it's quite reasonable to
charge "X+postage and handling" for a fixed X.  For example, delivering
to an address just next door to an AppleStore may well be cheaper than
delivering to some rural address in the heartlands.  But does Apple
charge the rural customers more?  No way -- _in the US_ they're quite
careful to avoid the horrid PR that would result from THAT.  Elsewhere,
apparently, they don't really care -- if Apple believes that Britons can
be gouged for 20% more than Frenchmen, they pounce on it.  I find that
sad when I'm not foaming at the mouth against it;-).


> I do with the free / not free (free beer) stuff now.  If the software I
> write is free (free speech and possibly free beer), I don't mind that
> much in making it GPL or BSDL or anothr free license (I personally like
> the GPL idea, so this is the one I use).

You like it and use it when you write software yourself, yet you
expressed the desire that Qt didn't, so you could use it when you write
software that's not free.  "Do unto others as you would have others do
unto you" seems a fundamental, reasonable principle of fairness: aren't
you violating it here, by using a license you wish others didn't use?


Alex