General / Off-Topic Manchester City, a team of players at more than a billion euros.

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Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones, they sell smartphones for probably over 50% profit margin (probably more), yet people sweep them from store shelves anyway. So what's the true value of an iPhone? 150$, or 1000$ ?

I personally would never pay more than 200$ for a smartphone, but that doesnt matter, while people keep buying them at 1000$, they're worth 1000$. And it's not Apple's fault. Samey same for football t-shirts. I would never pay over 15$ for a football t-shirt, but while people keep pushing each other fighting to get that last shirt on the shelf for 65$, then they're worth 65$. There are other things that I'm willing to pay that will seem too much to other people as well, like over 2000$ for a gaming PC, or 500$ for a motorcycle exhaust can.

If you sell a product, and enough people would be willing to pay X for it, regardless of what it costed to produce, you would sell it for X, not X/10.

If people want prices to go down, then don't buy overpriced stuff they don't need anyway. If people are happy to pay high prices, then the price is right.
I-phone sales, are dramatically down this season. Huawei have changed the market place.
 
Absolutely, couldn't agree more, Sky totally messed up all sports in the UK. BBC couldn't afford to keep all of the previously protected "national crown jewel" events after these were split into two "grades" - hence cricket and golf for example are virtually absent from free TV. The thing that amazed me about the split is that the Commonwealth Games are not Cat A protected.


I think that the complaining about sky's monopoly ruined things even further. Now if you want to watch all televised matches you and to pay for 2 subscriptions. Personally I would have preferred just the one but hey ho
 
The atmosphere, support and devotion, was just the same. When fans wore flat caps and home made scarfs and raised a cheer, with wooden clackers. I understand, fan devotion to a team, or sport and even an individual participant; but that does not justify, or excuse; exploiting that devotion.
I totally agree with you on that Arry. And that goes with anything.
 
Some people around here have spent lots of money supporting the game development and then paying even more to change the colour of the pixels within the game. Nothing material to show for it.

I think your quote is a point of view that can be extended to anything
Thinking something and it being a fact; are two different things. There is value for money and there is monopoly controlled over pricing. Personally, if we are now talking F.D., then I believe that they offer good value for money. However: We are not talking about F.D., we are talking about the richest football clubs in the country and how did they get, so rich?

I own a Sony L3 mobile phone. It does nothing less than any i-phone, on the market and is a quarter of the price. Yes it may not be top spec, or take a tenth of a second longer to do its stuff; but that is basically it. The battery lasts longer, I can still make calls, send texts, take very good high quality photos, play games, etc. etc. and now I have saved enough to by 10 football shirts; if I wanted them.

As far as extending my point: That is up to whomever, wants to equate one thing with another. However: I am talking about monopolies controlling prices. Where you have to buy something, from just one place, or not at all. School uniforms, are another example. It is not good enough in the U.K. to send your kids to school in smart cloths of the right colour and style; they have to be the 'official uniforms' from the the only official suppliers, at five times the cost of the local supermarket. These are things, where the buyer, does not have choice. Like buying their kids a football strip, to show support for their team.

People just going out and spending stupid money, just because they want it and to show their peer groups, that they have and can afford it, is just dumb, one-upmanship. Which is what the manufactures and retailers, depend on.

More money than sense. A fool and his money are soon parted, are just two examples, of what I am saying. The yuppie era made greed good, buying the most expensive, the acceptable thing to do. It also caused the biggest financial crash in history.
 
The moment I had my own place to live, I refused anything tainted by Murdoch in my house. The man is scum.

A big part of the money/football thing is, it was a recreation for working class. It used to cost a few quid, £1 for the program. You could take the kids and have a bite at half time for the price of a ticket today. I estimate that in relative terms.

You couldn’t go to every game your team plays in the Premier on the average wage.
 
There is another way....

Actually playing football. Exercise is good for you and so is working in a team.
Or Cricket.
Or Basket Ball
Or Hockey
Or Baseball
Or Hand Ball
Or Rugby
Or American Football
Or Ice Hockey

And you don't need a fast internet connection. You can have more than 4 to a wing and you get some fresh air.
 
I think that the complaining about sky's monopoly ruined things even further. Now if you want to watch all televised matches you and to pay for 2 subscriptions. Personally I would have preferred just the one but hey ho
it is the same with F1. It will cost you £700 just to log on to sky, then you need the sports channel, plus the F1 channel.

I keep asking myself. Who now controls F1? Sky or the F1 association, because Sky now dictate, what we can all watch on free-view T.V. From the press briefings, to the press box, (no channel 4 mikes being seen there) the podium etc. and the really insane thing is. At the time of broadcasting, it is what the F1 association shows the world, is what EVERYBODY gets to see. Local broadcasters, can choose to cut to other things, but basically, if you watch F1 live, sky etc. have no control of what is being shown. Yet Sky subscribers, are paying with the belief, that they are getting some form of extras.
 
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I suppose the same could be said about Android phones. To get a decent one (unless you just want to use it as a phone), you have to pay top dollar. But, like Apple, there is no competition. Apple and Android are tied to their respective operating systems. A mobile phone company can't just start up and enter the market. It has to adhere to either OS. So, they are monopolies. People rely on mobile phones, so they can't just not buy them. It's a done deal. I've had enough of AMD, Intel and NVidia. I'm going to build a gaming PC, oh, wait a minute. It doesn't matter if you're willing to pay X for it or not if the choice is limited to a few brands. Supply and Demand, but the supply is determined before you can decide.

There are mobile phones from 50$ all the way to >1000$, and lots of different brands use android as OS. Yes the 1000$ phone might have a better camera for getting instagram likes, or be better at running bathroom pause crappy games, but it's to each one to decide how much they value those things. I have never paid more than 200$ for a phone because I don't give a rat's behind about intagram photos or poop games, but if someone else wants to throw away 1000$ it's his business.

There used to be more operating systems for phones (windows mobile and symbian) but they disappeared because customers preferred apple and android phones. There was no monopolistic conspiracy, it was the customers who decided which operating systems would survive with their purchasing choices. Anyway, there are still android phones ranging from 50$ to >1000$ (same for graphics cards btw), you are not doomed to paying top dollar for a phone, most especially because absolutely nothing that a 1000$ phone does that a 150$ phone can't is actually important or a basic need.

No matter how much people will try to blame corporate conspiracies, in the overwhelming majority of cases it's the customers who end up determining prices by their purchase behaviour. If no one payed 1000$ for an iPhone, they would have much lower prices, because at the end of the day Apple needs to sell phones, and if no one was buying their absurdly priced products, they would lower the prices. If people still buy them nonetheless at 100$, they'll stay at that price or even increase more. It's as simple as that.

Customers have a lot more power than people think. Unfortunately, many tend to end up betrayed by their overall sheeple behaviour and don't use that power, but that's their fault.
 
I-phone sales, are dramatically down this season. Huawei have changed the market place.

That is a perfect example of the market working as intended, and how customer decisions are the true power in capitalism.

A few years ago nobody had even heard of Huawei, and not it's one of the top players in the phone market. Because there was a large costumer demand for cheaper phones. And Apple either has to start providing cheaper phones, or risk going back to being the niche brand it was until 15 years ago. Before the smartphone era., Nokia was the top dog in phones for over a decade decades, yet lagged behind when new players stepped up and almost disappeared.
 
That is a perfect example of the market working as intended, and how customer decisions are the true power in capitalism.

A few years ago nobody had even heard of Huawei, and not it's one of the top players in the phone market. Because there was a large costumer demand for cheaper phones. And Apple either has to start providing cheaper phones, or risk going back to being the niche brand it was until 15 years ago. Before the smartphone era., Nokia was the top dog in phones for over a decade decades, yet lagged behind when new players stepped up and almost disappeared.
Huawei; are you joking? Stuck to the Android operating System and the licencing costs. The standard has been set; iphone or android. That is not free market and competitive pricing. That's cutting costs with cheap labour.
 
it is the same with F1. It will cost you £700 just to log on to sky, then you need the sports channel, plus the F1 channel.

I keep asking myself. Who now controls F1? Sky or the F1 association, because Sky now dictate, what we can all watch on free-view T.V. From the press briefings, to the press box, (no channel 4 mikes being seen there) the podium etc. and the really insane thing is. At the time of broadcasting, it is what the F1 association shows the world, is what EVERYBODY gets to see. Local broadcasters, can choose to cut to other things, but basically, if you watch F1 live, sky etc. have no control of what is being shown. Yet Sky subscribers, are paying with the belief, that they are getting some form of extras.

F1 is probably one of the best (worst) examples of a monopoly extracting untold millions from peoples pockets. It's on a whole new level to football clubs
 
Huawei; are you joking? Stuck to the Android operating System and the licencing costs. The standard has been set; iphone or android. That is not free market and competitive pricing. That's cutting costs with cheap labour.

They're not stuck, they just prefer not to develop their own OS. Like I said a few posts back, a few years ago there were 2 other mobile OS, windows phone from microsoft and symbian from nokia. The reason why there are only 2 now is because customers massively preferred IOS and Android, and chose not to buy Symbian and Windows Phone devices. But there's nothing stopping any company from coming up with their own OS. It was the customers, like almost every single time, that set the standard by buying loads of apple and android phones and almost completely ignoring symbian and windows mobile phones.
 
They're not stuck, they just prefer not to develop their own OS. Like I said a few posts back, a few years ago there were 2 other mobile OS, windows phone from microsoft and symbian from nokia. The reason why there are only 2 now is because customers massively preferred IOS and Android, and chose not to buy Symbian and Windows Phone devices. But there's nothing stopping any company from coming up with their own OS. It was the customers, like almost every single time, that set the standard by buying loads of apple and android phones and almost completely ignoring symbian and windows mobile phones.
Do they? 'they just prefer not to develop their own OS'

Really? You honestly reckon that, do you? But you said that people will keep paying. And this is why: Because there are no alternatives.

Apart from Windows, Mac and Linux, have you heard of the ZippyBungleGeorge OS? No?... I wonder why...
 
Do they? 'they just prefer not to develop their own OS'

Really? You honestly reckon that, do you? But you said that people will keep paying. And this is why: Because there are no alternatives.

By all means, enlighten us on how Google forces any smartphone manufacturer to use their operating system on their phones and somehow forbids them from developing their own os. I am genuinely curious. And there were alternatives, Windows Phone and Symbian, but people didn't buy these so they were abandoned by their manufacturers due to lack of sales.

Apart from Windows, Mac and Linux, have you heard of the ZippyBungleGeorge OS? No?... I wonder why...

There are actually more OS's, especially for servers. But Windows and Mac dominate the consumer market. And you know why? Because customers buy those almost exclusively and let all the others die (by not purchasing them). Even Linux only survives because it very used in servers, especially for web. But I'm sure you have a theory on how a corporate monopolistic conspiracy has forbidden companies from creating new operating systems and it has nothing to do with the fact people just buy apple computers and PCs with Windows.
 
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