Apple reportedly ’accelerating’ entry-level Vision Pro — and it could cost $2,000 less

[u/bsoci]

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vr-ar/apple-reportedly-accelerating-entry-level-vision-pro-and-it-could-cost-dollar2000-less

[u/Lehas1]

Lol, reality check: meta has across their plattforms more than 2 bilion active users.

Imagine following scenario. facebook offers their customers following option. pay 3000€ once and we will never track you again in life and will respect your privacy. A negible account would take this offer.

If you really think customers think their data and privacy worth 3000€ than Meta is higly undervalued in the current stockmarket. This would mean their market value is above 6 trillion €.

[u/jduder107 → u/Lehas1]

You’re falsely equating physical products to “free” digital services.  When people use services like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. they do so with the understanding that their “payment” is their data being sold and used for targeted advertising (whether they are aware of this is up to debate, but with recent hearings of tech companies like Facebook and google, I’d say most people are aware).

However, when you buy a physical product that relationship instantly changes. The base expectation is that when a consumer pays for a physical product, the company they purchase it from makes their money by making the cost higher than manufacturing and logistics costs. When a company decides to not only charge you for a physical (or digital) product and then harvest your data, they are double dipping. 

All this to say that even though their estimated users across all their platforms are over 3 billion, and even though the vast majority do not value their privacy at $3000, they do so with the understanding that their data is payment for a digital service. The situation changes for physical products where plenty of people are willing to pay a premium for better user privacy (this is a selling point for iPhones for a reason, Apple’s marketing team isn’t stupid).

Tl;dr Why are you quoting a $3000 privacy fee for digital services that doesn’t have near the features or technology or manufacturing cost of a physical device with cameras and microphones. No one is paying a $3000 premium for on device privacy (no one claimed they are), but it does contribute to the value.

[u/BelgianWaffleStomper → u/jduder107]

Nah.

VERY few people create a gmail account and think “oh yeah I’m the product here, they use my data because it’s free… I could buy an iPhone and get an Apple ID with a more secure email… but I’d rather just have the free one where they harvest my data”

Most people couldn’t even explain to you what data harvesting means, they just see an ad or recommendation from a product and follow the leader.

[u/jduder107 → u/BelgianWaffleStomper]

Very few people think about the trade off when they use any free service. But I’d argue that with the increase in media coverage on this very topic, if you ask someone how these free services make money they will mention something along the lines of data and advertisements. They aren’t thinking about it, but (like I said) they are aware of it, at least subconsciously.

[u/BelgianWaffleStomper → u/jduder107]

I think you’re giving people far too much credit.

[u/jduder107 → u/BelgianWaffleStomper]

Maybe, but the impact of on device privacy to consumers is a hill I will die on. Anyone saying it’s disregarded by almost all consumers is wrong in my opinion.

[u/Radulno → u/jduder107]

The Quest platform proves people don't care about this for VR/hardware either. It's by far the most successful VR platform (Quest 2 sold around as much as the Xbox Series X/S)

Apple sells well not because of privacy but because they got good marketing and brand image and make good products

[u/jduder107 → u/Radulno]

 The Quest platform proves people don't care about this for VR/hardware either. It's by far the most successful VR platform (Quest 2 sold around as much as the Xbox Series X/S)

You can’t make that claim for one reason, the quest 2 and the quest 3 has no clear competitor. HTC is double the price of the quest 3 (4x the quest 2), the valve index is as well (but it isn’t even sold in retail stores like htc and quest), Sony requires a PS5 (plus it’s hard locked for only titles on PlayStation), the Pico (which is the closest competitor) isn’t even sold in the US, where an estimated 60 million people own a VR system. So considering the low cost for barrier to entry and availability in retail, that explains why it’s the most successful VR headset. It also explains why the only quest headset priced outside of the low cost bubble failed horribly.

 Apple sells well not because of privacy but because they got good marketing and brand image and make good products.

This is true, their marketing team is amazing at targeting items that resonate with consumers and then using that to positively impact sales. They choose high impact topics like: battery life, camera quality, display quality, ease of use, PRIVACY. None of these items are the reason iPhones sell well, they are CONTRIBUTING FACTORS. 

[u/Radulno → u/jduder107]

Ok if you want another example Android. People know Google is "spying" of them and yet it's not exactly a failure (majority share in the world, roughly 50-50 in the US).

People generally don't care about privacy as much as you think. Microsoft, Google, Meta are all companies we know are not really high on privacy and yet they're huge.

Also by the way Apple privacy position is just that they keep the data to themselves and prevent competitors to access it as easily (which they all do, that's their most valuable asset, they don't sell data, they use the data to sell ads and such), their ad business is growing quite a lot since that position. So we kind of agree, that privacy position is mostly marketing and do contribute to sales because it looks nice. But it's not people primary preoccupation

[u/jduder107 → u/Radulno]

Ok if you want another example Android. People know Google is "spying" of them and yet it's not exactly a failure (majority share in the world, roughly 50-50 in the US).

Different people, same story. China has approximately 1.6 billion phone users, India has approximately 1.5 billion. In both of these countries, it is recognized that the highest impact on phone brand popularity is price. That’s why in China, Apple struggles to crack 20% market share and in India, Apple struggles to crack 5% market share (not even gonna mention the issue of comparing sales since Apple need to compete with 5+ companies sales combined when comparing off OS market share). Now I could make the argument that more privacy focused countries tend to be majority iPhone users (Switzerland, Iceland, Japan, etc.), but I know that’s not the real reason. In countries like those and the US, median income is many times greater than global median income. More money means people will pay for more expensive phones. Privacy contributes to purchasing decisions but people will buy what they are able to buy.

 Also by the way Apple privacy position is just that they keep the data to themselves and prevent competitors to access it as easily (which they all do, that's their most valuable asset, they don't sell data, they use the data to sell ads and such), their ad business is growing quite a lot since that position.

True, but Apple is the only one that doesn’t continue tracking cross platform and that makes it super easy (or even possible when talking about some companies) to opt out of targeted ads. Also, Google and Meta have both been using user data as payment for developers. They don’t use it just for targeted ads like they claim. They wouldn’t be heavily investigated and forced to pay out a settlement if that was the case.

 So we kind of agree, that privacy position is mostly marketing and do contribute to sales because it looks nice. But it's not people primary preoccupation.

I agree privacy position is mostly marketing, but the marketing only contributes to sales because there is a market for increased privacy. Aesthetics sell because they look good. Marketed features sell because of their functionality. (But yes, I agree it’s not people’s primary focus).

[u/humble-bragging → u/jduder107]

they do so with the understanding blissfully ignoring that their “payment” is their data being sold

FTFY

[u/djrbx → u/Lehas1]

There's people who do this already. They'll buy an iPhone and tout because it's secure yet install all the tracking apps from TikTok, Instagram, FB, WhatsApp, etc. Sure the OS and device doesn't track how the user uses their phones, but the apps themselves track how the users interact with it.