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Angry Tim Cook Issues Veiled Threat At Retailers Shunning Apple Pay
Despite the mainstream media's effusive celebration of ApplePay - despite numerous payment systems and NFC devices alreadt existing and failing to achieve any paradigm shift - it appears Tim Cook has pushed his company into an area of competition he was not full prepared for. Seemingly expecting the world's retailers to embrace the 'unique' payment system, first Wal-Mart & Best Buy, then CVS and now Rite-Aid have all blocked ApplePay. While proclaiming the success of signing up over a million credit card users in the first 72 hours, Cook seemed ticked off at the retailers who blocked him, "it's a skirmish," he said, as Reuters reports, jabbing "merchants have different objectives sometimes. But in the long arc of time, you only are relevant as a retailer or merchant if your customers love you."
Apple CEO Tim Cook fired back at CVS and Rite Aid on Monday after the drugstore chains blocked the iPhone maker's mobile payments service, saying there were plenty of other retailers around the world to sign up.
...
Such services, through which a user pays by holding a smartphone close to a specially designed terminal, have failed to catch on in the United States despite the backing of Google and other influential players.
News emerged over the weekend that the two retailers had opted out of Apple Pay in favor of a rival system that roughly 50 chains, including Wal-Mart and Best Buy, are developing for in-house use. "We've got a lot more merchants to sign up, we've got a lot of banks to sign up and we've got the rest of the world," Cook told the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference, in the company's most extensive comments on the blockade so far.
...
CVS and Rite Aid have not explained their surprise move.
But the driving force behind developing a retailer-owned mobile payment solution is to avoid paying credit card transaction fees to card companies like Visa and Mastercard, analysts said. Fees range between 2 percent and 3 percent of costs per transaction.
...
Cook argued on Monday that Apple Pay offered better security and privacy than competing services, and that retailers risked alienating customers by limiting choices at checkout.
"It's a skirmish," Cook said in response to a question about the retailers' moves.
"Merchants have different objectives sometimes. But in the long arc of time, you only are relevant as a retailer or merchant if your customers love you."
* * *
Finally - despite little coverage in the mainstream media - it should be noted that more store chains have sided with CurrentC - aq competing payments system - than have signed up for ApplePay.
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AAPL OR BUST! all over ya face and stuff..
http://www.hedge.bz
Hey Tim,
Go iFUCK yourself!
Jobs was such a nice guy for a pompous asshole. Why can't more learn to be as polite of an asshole as Jobs.
Loving something inanimate is a San Francisco value.
Coming soon: the iVibe...
"such services, through which a user pays by holding a smartphone close to a specially designed terminal, have failed to catch on in the United States despite the backing of Google and other influential players."
I've paid at a couple of small-town America businesses with Softcard (cough...Isis). Clerks audibly gasped each time....and one was the owner. I do believe they had never seen this before, and had no idea their sales terminals could do that.
This technology does not seem on the verge of setting the world on fire.
"A transaction fee"
Good luck with that business model. Motherfucker.
"A transaction fee"
Good luck with that business model. Motherfucker."
1.5% + $.0.10 on each Visa transaction.
But that'll never catch on.....
The cock sucker is a fucking banker...
Fuck you Tim, and here is why...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vBNwC3idq0
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
Indeed. Jobs took lots of entheogens. He admits to LSD, but I also suspect DMT/ayahuasca.
Through these encounters, one develops respect for all life and a desire to eat right (hence his veganism), a deep grasp of the human condition (hence his product visions). But one also develops a way of "standing in one's truth", i.e. committing to a cause, and also getting ragey when others lie or fail to meet commitments.
Some people think that religions developed from peoples encounters with the visionary plants. When you have this experience for yourself it will just be obvious that this is what happened. And then the story of Steve Jobs, the following he garnered, the huge structure built for him posthumously, etc, it all sounds like the birth of any other religion.
You have canines for a reason. ...
Steve was an evil sociopath
I should have said "eating lean". Not trying to argue that veganism is right. Steve's diet was extreme even for a psychonaut.
i guess all that "eating right" can really fuck up your pancreas....
If this is the smart guy at Apple, what's the dumb guy like ?
Everybody else there speaks Chinese....
It hasn't occured to the techies that we already have more than enough "adult" toys?
iCrap for you
my best friend's sister makes $80 /hour on the internet . She has been laid off for 7 months but last month her paycheck was $13987 just working on the internet for a few hours. visit site... www.Yelptrade.com
Does your best friend's sister use an iBrator?
The question is, who has a better relationship with the spy state, Apple or WalMart?
Eh, they all want to be MIC-DoD Spy agencies, Data Trackers, and Wall Street TBTF Banks...
Monopolies are powerful, seductive, and corruptive. Oh but they hate competition... competition is anti-american!!
There can be only one!!
" first Wal-Mart & Best Buy, then CVS and now Rite-Aid have all blocked ApplePay."
the bigger retailers screwed the pooch by playing fast and loose with customer data. never would have used paypal at target and home depot before but now no way i am giving them a cc number.
I will purposely got get cash out of their ATM's just so I can force them to have to deal with the cash.
retailers prefer cash. there are no vendor fees and no costs to run/maintain/train epayment hardware. if you LIKE a particular retailer, pay in cash as they net ~5% more all-in. if you don't like a retailer, use AMEX.
Just buy back some more stock Tim....that should solve all of your problems. //
How much is Apple's haircut to the retailer?
Famous last words.
Apple is a dead man walking.
Naw, that dead man hasn't been walking since Jobs left.
LOL when IBM gets bought out of bankruptcy first then maybe AAPL might take a hit.
I reckon plenty of silly people bought cheap RIMM and sold 'overpriced' AAPL and lost their shirts believing the anti-hype...
The iPhone 6 indicates otherwise.
As soon as they run out of cash for stock buy backs, it's Rimm mkII.
Tim is going to eat his own words one day soon. No way Apple could ever disappoint their customers, right? Dude, you are clearly no Steveie J.
"Oh, you'll eventually use it" is a pretty shitty response here, Tim. Yet again, he's are only saying what that charlatan Steve Jobs would of said.
Hey now, Jobs was a saint compared to this asshole.
"it should be noted that more store chains have sided with CurrentC - aq competing payments system - than have signed up for ApplePay."
So buy CurrentC with some of that 100 billion Apple's got in the bank.
This guy Cook isn't the brightest bulb on the Apple Christmas Tree. He doesn't know how to crush competitors like Steve Jobs did, or Bill Gates before him at Microsoft. If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.
Pfffffffftttt. Invest in your own company's future? What a quaint idea. That money is better spent on paying down debt they used to buy back stock. It's the "new normal".
I don't know what I was thinking.
CurrentC is the biggest pile of steamin crap I have ever seen in a Phone App
You have to give them your bank details, involves scanning a Q mark with your phone...
Unusable.
Watch to see it withdrawn from the App Store and Google Play in 5, 4, 3, ...
craapl = spy organization for big brother.
bad apple
Fuck NSApple. And Jobs is still dead and still not getting back up.
The retailers should start accepting Fed-Pay. You just wave a magic wand and the payments come out of thin air.
That's just what retailers need, another leech on their costs, and an arrogant one at that.
They certainly aren't going to take the leap right before black Friday (Thursday).
The big retialers are smart to let the bugs get shaken out elsewhere.
Besides, WalMart is the Samsung/Obamaphone crowd.
iPhone is more of a Whole Foods phone.
Dumb move by Apple to work on a payment system instead of another igadget. Would be easier to team up with existing software.
I already have a credit card that has encryption, a password, and insurance. What benefit does the new system have?
Real question.
The benefit is that you are capable of looking even more like a douchebag in your every day life.
You can have all your personal information stolen in a nice tidy package.
That.
including a goddamned fingerprint.
what he said.
"you only are relevant as a retailer or merchant if your customers love you."
It's a fucking drug store. No one cares. And I don't have any problems paying for things now.
Tim Cook should warn retailers that Apple is backed by the full force and faith of the NSA for all the spying it enables. That threat may carry more weight.
It's all stealing. From one corporation to another. Apple is now a monopoly and with it comes huge legal costs and payments.
Very close to an absolute top in apple.
Disagree, they don't even have dominant market share.
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! poor tim cook can't be master of the universe. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
who needs ur apple i crap anyway
i'm going low tech.
its the black ;)
About time somebody flipped Apple the bird.............
They get away with their overpriced monopoly shit long enough and now they tried to pull it on the big boys....
Guess what?????
They ain't playing ball......
NSA is AAPL is AMZN is NFLX is EXPE is FDX, etc...
First locking out the competition and now complaining about getting locked out.
http://www.coindesk.com/apple-removes-blockchain-bitcoin-wallet-from-app...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/10/apple-blocks-bitcoin-p...
not an apple fan, but the competing system, currentc, is a joke.
Who shops at Walmart anyway? Did aapl start putting food stamps on this now too?
I would like to pay for gas with Apple pay. I don't like that card reader at gas stations.
"Did aapl start putting food stamps on this now too?"
Now THAT is genius. Tim Cook is kicking himself he didn't think of that. I am too. Well played.
Where else can you get anything? Joanne's Fabrics? Home Depot?... though that place has been dead lately what with all the housing boom...
Seriously how do you avoid WMT?
Amazon everything. Which is why I don't know what the play is here. Retail is deader than dead.
I guess I find my way to the dollar store for cleaning supplies and random bullshit.
I went to walmart early 2013 when I was traveling for work and it was the closest option and I needed Benadryl. It was 11pm. The place was a zoo. Like I thought this would be a quick in and out. 45 minutes.
I walked though: everything looks like a major consumers goods manufacturer is just buying space from them. Like the food was all ConAgra and coke and Pepsi Co etc. J&J and P&G. Then SAMs choice stuff. As huge as it is, it's a very limited selection of stuff. I do have a Sam's card mostly for the cheap diesel.
EBT the only way to pay. Thanks Obama.
"I know it was you, Wal-Mart. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!"
fucking love the handle. but ditch the biography. why the fuck would you want to brag about that. that cert lost all its credibility when they let me in. YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB! now pass that choomstick
I-hubris
I laugh at the isheep.
Cash is anonymous. that is all.
New payment systems are a dime a dozen. Apple brings nothing to the table. RRetailers didn't appreciate Apple wanting to become a rentier at their expense.
Welcome to street retailing, AAPL! Your product line, marketing strategy, and image is focused on the upper 20% of the U.S. economy. The chains, which refused Apple Pay, are serving the next 3 quintiles. Relations with Visa, Master Card, and to a much lesser extent Discover, have been nurtured over the years.
Apple did not consider the additional costs and simple inconvenience that adding another payment medium to the checkout counter would entail. They did not consider the cash-back to consumer programs, transaction volume discounts to retailers, and joint merchandising that these chains are getting.
The only way that Apple can penetrate the major discount chains is to buy their way in over at least 2 years. That means losing money on Apple Pay for a while. How is that going to support the share price of the stock?
Tim Cook = Dedicated Koolaid Drinker
Tim's problem is that his engineers haven't yet perfected RDF 2.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field)
I'm not using Apple or apple pay anytime, any place.
period!
The mark of The Beast!
"Merchants have different objectives sometimes."
No Timmeh, their only objectives are revenue and profit.
Screw Apple pay. Cook should just issue his own currency, backed with "Apple Gold", then declare war on China.
Apple's stellar reputation vs. Bank of America's reputation for the worst customer service ever.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/bofa.html
Seriously, Bank of America is to banking what Earthlink is to email.
Is Apple begging to perform at Bank of America's lowest level of customer service?
I think since Steve died things are not the same. 3 hours getting my iPhone 6 activated.
Steve has moved on to better things: APPL is going to start eating its fingers for lack of ingenuity.
LOL. you bought an icrap6.
4.7 inch, 720p IPS displays were midrange in 2012.
Phone payment isn't that big a deal. It might be a tiny bit faster than paying by credit card, but not much. I wouldn't choose a store based on whether or not it allows phone-pay.
So Apple's threats are empty. If they want Apple-pay to be accepted, they need to offer something more to entice people to use it. Same for all the other systems.
And I think that retailers are not going to accept a system that only works for one brand of smartphone.
i was somewhat surprised to find out tim-cook is a homo-sexual ... what other fortune 50 companies are run by a homo-sexual? but then come to think of it whole apple products probably geared to appeal to homos, trannies, and metro-sexuals so tim-cook may be the perfect ceo for apple.
Peak iHype.
BitCoin Last Price $353
It works if you work it.
why would the largest retailers relive visa and mastercard all over again.
retailers have more influence over a smaller company solely providing POS services, not some 10 headed beast like apple
sucks to be you Cook.
Doesn't the apple "solution" require the retailer to buy a proprietary apple payment terminal? More costs for the retailer?
I think the competing solution does not require the retailer to buy more hardware?
Visa and Mastercard are the good guys here? These f@ckers developed the basic IT to process this by the late 70s and by the mid-80s it was standard place. Literally have done nothing really instrumental in terms of IT or product development (some enhanched fraud detection but that was by other firms they either acquired or partnered with) and these f@ckers are still taking 2-3% of a transaction. F@ck them. Utterly ridiculous and it should be a faction of that by now.
Instead Visa and Mastercard have just played the lobbying game at the federal and state level as well as any company in the US the past 30 years. Not saying that Apple is some force for good here but any body that offers some competition to Visa and Mastercard is welcome in my book generally.
This asshole is no less irrelevant than any other prompter-reading, thieving, murdering, tranny-blowing, banker financed public servant. Why do westerners insist on idolizing these worthless douchebags? They're geniuses? Ponzi icons.
Apple's always whining about something. If I was one of their customers, I would be whining, too. They were cutting edge for years, but it just ain't that way anymore. I don't believe they're running a tight ship these days. And deceiving people about the security features, you know, how they're gonna protect you against gov't intrusion, isn't exactly enticing to a person as concerned about privacy as I am. Outrageous arrogance from Apple yet again.
Despite being a liberal mecca, I do have some respect for Apple from a purely capitalist perspective. However, I think anyone that trusts that company with security is out of their mind. If you can't trust your nude selfies in the Apple cloud, how can you trust them with payment systems? Apple is a joke from a security perspective. This will fail spectacularly. Jobs was Audi 5000 at the best moment he could have. RIP man.
Is this where I say "I told you so"? Hacked right away.
Fuck Apple, a contemporary tech plantation built on pure slavery. Steve Jobs, I hope, you're suffering in Hell for all the shit and tortures you had done to people in the world.
Guess what, Angry Tim Cook: in the real world, you have to offer a better and/or cheaper service or product in order to get ahead.
So fuck yourself, Angry Tim Cook. You love rigged markets except when it works against you?
If you hate the State and Banks use cash. Both want to know where your money comes from and where your money goes. Screw them both and help the retailers you visit by saving them a charge from the bank. Figure out what you need for the week and take out the cash or visit an ATM every few days and get cash. Do not use your ATM at stores- deny the banks the fees they charge retailers. Deny the state a paper trail of where your money goes. We must not allow the authorities to make it a cashless society- they are salivating over the idea. DENY TPTB at every turn- every small gesture helps.
Dear Tim, I used to love Apple but I don't anymore because they treat customers like shit and make crazy changes without thinking about the effect on long term professional users. I do understand that kids are your market and I understand they prefer toys to tools.
Also I despise you personally. You are anti-science (a science denier if you will) and you have publicly stated that if we don't agree with your unscientific (I guess that'd be your religious) beliefs about the climate thingy we should not buy your over priced stuff. After running a medical practice, a recording studio (3 ProTools systems) and my personal affairs on Apple products (Well over $100k in various item just from Apple over the years) all I can say is 'now you tell me'. You are a ridiculous figure scrapped up out of some marketing department I'd guess and you don't even realize how dumb you sound. You act like some starlet who assumes she is right because everyone smiles at her as they gaze upon her awesome rack.
I don't care anymore if Apple does well because I have been treated badly over the years by your flakey policies and random changes to your products. I'm stuck with some Apple products but I'm a big boy and will just suck it up and soldier on. Good luck with your war on WalMart, let us all know how the war goes. Maybe we'll see you tearful on Oprah someday begging for forgiveness. I'll be busy that day but if you are humiliated enough I'm sure Drudge will link the good bits.
In the meantime keep playing the idiotic fool and pretend that you are the heart of Apple. Is it true Jobs died just to get away from you?...(I made that up)
Wow.
Thanks for the reminder re The Great Lance Armstrong.
Lance should be remembered as one of the supreme symbols of Modern Amurica: years of outstanding outward achievement, based on years of careful, systematic doping, cheating and lies.
looks like I'm not the only one with a build up of Apple hate....too bad but they made their own bed.
People think that Jobs was a tech genuis, which isn't really true. He was a marketing genius, a deals genius, and a product management genius. You rarely get one of those things. And, he had more charisma and bigger balls than the rest of the joint put together.
Cook is the guy at Apple who made the trains run on time. I don't detect an ounce of creativity in the cat. Apple really was Jobs.
Apple stock is now about 730/sh equivalent. I believe some on here are not keeping up.
What was the stock value when Cook took over? You can disparage Tim Cook all you want but I'm rolling in profits that I will one day cash a portion in and stack some more PMs.
To each, his own. Thanks, Tim Cook.
iFinger to Apple. Their crummy solution is not innovative as what sits under it is the legacy banking system. Lipstick on a big pig.
Yawn... More Tyler Durden bought AAPL at $700 and lost out... Cautionary Tale...
I found this article on Forbes.com Thanks to a link from drudgereort,com.
It explains the situation facing Apple much better. But it also begs the question: "What was Apple thinking, when they decided to push Apple Pay into retail outlets?"
written by Laura Heller for Forbes:
There’s a battle shaping up in the retail world that pits two of the largest and most powerful players — Apple AAPL +1.52% and Walmart — directly against each other, thanks to Apple’s new payment platform. It’s an interesting example of an internal industry struggle spilling out into a public street.
The core of the matter is Apple Pay, Apple’s new mobile payment system that launched Monday. Simple, elegant and safe mobile payment options have long eluded retailers and technology companies, and Apple Pay promises to bring us a lot closer to a solution that both works, and works for consumers.
Apple Pay works with point of sale terminals equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. It lets users tap to pay, assuming they own an iPhone 6 and have uploaded a credit card to work with the program.
Not all retailers have NFC terminals and even a couple who do — namely CVS and Rite Aid RAD +5.42% — have opted to turn off Apple Pay functionality. That’s because a competitive payment platform called CurrentC is forcing retailers to make a choice to accept one or the other.
Essentially, CurrentC is the product of the Walmart-led Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). A group of big retailers and merchants that spent years trying to develop a system that would ease the burden of paying swipe fees to credit card companies. These businesses got together, built a platform and rolled it out, and then came head to head with Apple’s.
But MCX required participating merchants to pay an upfront fee and commit to three-year exclusivity, with some leeway within the first year of joining the exchange. CVS and Rite Aid are on this list.
So now we have an epic battle, a clash of titans. Apple, often viewed as the “good” guy in white, against big, bad Walmart. There’s even aboycott of MCX-supported retailers being discussed on Reddit.
But consider a few facts:
Retailers have been fighting so-called “swipe-fees” for years. Lobbying government to step in a reduce how much retailers must pay to credit card companies for the convenience of accepting their cards.
For the un-initiated, swipe fees ring up roughly $30 billion annually, according to the National Retail Federation. There have been a series of legal rulings attempting to cap fees, but the dance goes on with retailers actively seeking ways to reduce this burden and Walmart being the most active agitator.
This article is pretty damning of Walmart. To think that businesses are forced to select one payment method over another seems a bit monopolistic. And if it's really about fee reduction, how does Walmart's compare to Apple's? Hopefully the consumer will prevail and if the megastores suffer, that's not all bad, it's just the market at work.
Guess what Cupertino company runs on Dell servers. Draw your own conclusions.
Fuck you Tim. You should of bought a BlackBerry Passport phone.
;)
Sure they don't want to pay the credit card fees, I agree but the big deal here is the absense of capturing your data for sale. Heck even the guys over at Wall Street Tech gave me a high five on that one as it's that awful little secret of data selling that makes billions for banks and companies that nobody wants to talk about. Heck Walgreens is pulling in 1-2 billion a year on selling our data so compare that and add on the fees they would have to pay and bingo!
Yes Apple was over on my blog reading my post about it as well. The way Apple has engineered the token process is good for keeping hackers out as that's what it's supposed to do. Remember it is MC and Visa on the hook for the petty fraud.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/cvs-and-rite-aid-to-stop-using-apple.html
Sure they don't want to pay the fees but the loss of data for sale is a bigger issue for them.
They are not the only ones in this game and read this post with a computer scientist/lawyer from Stanford pick apart Verizon as real time data brokers too.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/verizon-wireless-packaging-and-selling.html
The fat lady hasn't even begun to sign on all of this yet either. I'm a bit time privacy advocate and I have been working for 3 years to get a law passed to require data sellers to have to buy a license, so we know who they are. Here's my link below and just read all the udpates on the data selling and watch the videos and your hair will stand on end. You don't have to contribute but if you feel nice and kick a little my way I won't complain. I want people to know the truth on how this works and wake up more than anything. Again be sure to click on all the udpates and there's a lot of links that take you back to my blog posts about health insurers buying your credit card transactions, using software to record and score you voice at their call center to see what your current state is. They can take that too and sell it to behavior analyists and they do that.
See what our dumb consumer protection czar does with Argus which is a company that buys credit card transactions, packages us up and sells our data "scored and analyzed". Our Government buys from them as well as banks and insurance companies. I knew Richard Cordray was going to be a duper when he was appointed and he's following course sadly. Your "ass" is getting sold all over the place and you don't even know it, as well as the secret scores you are accumulating too.
Also, back to the drug stores and Apple Pay, we have Walgrees suing both CVS and RiteAid for patent issues with their mobile software and Walgreens wants money from them in the class action suit, so toss that in there too for good measure.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/03/walgreens-suing-cvs-rite-aid-wants.html
http://www.gofundme.com/auyxd0
Yes folks it'l all about the profitbale corporate data selling epidemic in the US to make money from our data.
NXP bitch
http://m.barrons.com/articles/apple-pay-alipay-deal-would-boost-nxp-1414...
Tim's business model is Cooked.
I enjoy the check out process of CVS and Rite-aid. They make you feel guilty for not having a card to save money. I also remind them that it's better to pay more than provide you the opportunity for gaming identity theft.
99.9% of the time, the clerk will shut the fuck up. The other sport I enjoy, handing them a one hundred dollar bill. Watching them hold it into the store lighting is fascinating. I tell them it's the new Quantitative Easing edition. That comment blows right over their Common Core education head.
"Merchants have different objectives sometimes. But in the long arc of time, you only are relevant as a retailer or merchant if your customers love you."
How true Timmy. Apple has taken planned obsolescence past a point that I'm willing to tolerate. I went along with purchasing the latest OS every couple of years for my Apple desktop, but the most recent OS will not work at all with my older machine, which is now useless for going online. The folks at the Apple store told me this can't be fixed and I would need to buy a new computer. I did buy a new computer -- a Sony Vaio, which is not perfect, but it works. So long Apple. It was nice while it lasted, but I just don't love you any more.
ESABUS31 >Swift code
http://swiftcodes.org/bank/apple-bank/
"Despite the mainstream media's effusive celebration of ApplePay - despite numerous payment systems and NFC devices alreadt existing and failing to achieve any paradigm shift - it appears Tim Cook has pushed his company into an area of competition he was not full prepared for.
Well not sure what else the lying, corrupt and utterly feckless media would be doing other than supporting and propping up Apple's storyline and demands and also sugar-coating their hardline tactics - Cook pay the bills after all.
Since Apple helps the US government spy on everyone and everthing they have the government's blessing as well.
Meanwhile you have all these idiot hipster types acting like Apple's part of some kind of 'counterculture'!!
Poor Tim, Doesn't he know wallyworld owns retail. He'll have to sell them a shit load of icrap really cheap to get apple pay in their doors.
Dear Timmy: Anyone who thinks that love should be an emotion associated with any corporation, be it Apple, Walmart or anyone, needs their fucking head checked.
The problem is not whether or not American consumers love one corporation or another (either Platonically or the more typical ways). The problem is not that we don't have enough methods by which to pay. The problem is, the American consumer doesn't have enough fucking money. That's the problem. Once we've paid for the things we absolutely have to pay for, we're skin't. Obviously retailers know this. Wal-Mart has been saying so lately, and they've known that this is happening and why for years. There's a reason Wal-Mart's HR people give their own employees Welfare applications; they use government spending to subsidize their low-wage model, and when their own employees can't buy stuff at Wal-Mart, it's Game Over and they know it.
So for the moment they're squabbling over 1%-3% transaction fees and the consumer information and data tracking they perceive to be some treasure trove. Just great. Another line of inquiry to prove that the American consumer doesn't have enough fucking money. How many different paths do they have to follow to come to the same conclusion?
But of course every one of these clowns, to a man, would argue that the solution is to pump moar money through the Finance Sector; to privatize more of the public purse and transfer the speculative losses of the banks to the public ledger; to subsidize stock buybacks to rig market values and pad executive compensation packages; and tax cuts and Austerity for everyone else. Those who make enough money to pay enough in taxes to benefit from tax cuts already make enough money to pay for the things they need, and most of the things they don't need but want. Trouble is, there aren't enough of them. The majority of American non-Elite consumers, however, benefit more from Government spending than from the miserly wages they earn from private-sector jobs. So moar QE and moar Austerity only tightens the choke collar on the Golden Goose of Consumer Spending, as every one of these retail companies already knows. Since about 70% of US economic activity is consumer spending, and consumer incomes haven't budged inflation-adjusted for decades (for most they've gone down), the writing on the wall is easy enough to read, even with some fucked-up smartphone app running on a $600 phone made by Chinese slaves.
The dinosaurs got to the biggest, fiercest, fastest and freakiest just before they all keeled over and died. That lifecycle can be found over and over. When the icons of business get into a pissing contest about whose smart phone app and data-collection web they want to subscribe to for their broke-ass customers to use to pay for things they already don't have the money to buy, the keeling-over process is well under way.
In Europe we have touch-and-pay NFC cards - without PIN up to a certain amount, with PIN over that amount. iPhones are just a small section of the market here, just like the rest of the world outside the USA. Apple needs to get off its high horse, they just jumped in the hole that the backward American banking/payment system offered. I prefer to pay with a card anyway, especially as you often need to give it to a supermarket teller to get points/miles etc and they will drop the damn thing or rub it all over the greasy scanner surface. Plastic for me thanks.
I use cash moslty. I don't like to be tracked and I don't like to be hacked.
eff Apple and their brain-dead fanboy legions.
For years, along with kicking myself for not buying Apple stock at $20, I did not buy Apple computers. Bought HP, Sony and Brand X (custom builds). Then non-Apples because they could give me good performance at about half the price of an equivalent Apple.
Finally, as a kid's school mandated all enrolled have an Apple laptop, I bought a full blown, whistles and bells, Apple MacBook.
Alas! After even up to a decade of trouble-free performance from my non-Apple pc's, I chose not to buy the horribly expensive Apple extended warranty that for a bit under $400usa would give me 2 years warranty extension beyond the Apple 1 year warranty.
BTW, my EBay Brand X pc came with a 3 year warranty. Are you listening, Apple?
So 1 year 3 months after purchase, our $3,000 Apple MacBook Pro had problems...stopped recognizing any USB2.0 device.
All is not lost though! The Apple Store "genius" department (one must make an appt after exhausting the Apple online help), could not figure the problem out but did say that for only $365, they could send it off to an Apple Depot for est. 10 days and whatever was wrong would be fixed.
As a non-expert, when I buy a PC, I judge it on features, price and warranty. A short warranty like Apple (and others) 1 year warranty is a message from Apple that they do not have confidence in their product. Good thing Apple was smart enough to give a short warranty...otherwise Apple would be paying for the fix instead of me. And we all know Apple is dirt poor and can not afford to fix their product failures themselves. Better it be some cash-strapped little person who bought the Apple hype.
Hey Apple! Thanks for the over-priced PC that failed in just past your short warranty period...while my elcheapo Toshiba laptop, my HP, my Sony and my Brand X keep going.
Sure makes me want to buy another Apple. /s
DK
I hear ya. I do some drafting as part of my self-employment. Some of my work happens away from my office, so I need a robust desktop system with a fast processor, a lot of RAM, a big hard drive, and a heavy-duty video card. That's not hard to put together. When I'm on the road, I need the same thing, but small enough not to kill me dragging it around. That is not such an easy task. My drafting program chokes integrated graphics. I need a dedicated video card, decent battery life, big hard drive, lots of RAM, fast processor, etc.
I've been buying Sony VAIO laptops but they stopped making them. I've had some hardware issues with Sonys. My first one, the cooling fan died and it took a hassle to get it fixed. Also it had Windows Vista on it, and NVIDIA decided not to make a Windows 7 driver for the video card, so even though it was working fine it became useless to me. So I got a newer model, but now the ribbon-cable to the screen is obviously cracked.
I looked at the MacBook Pro. With the specs I want, it would cost me about $2500 or so in a 13" - 14" screen, for portability. I went with XOTIC PC, building me a Gigabyte machine from a lengthy list of options, for $1700. It's supposed to show up today via UPS, after a week's build process where they sent me updates every day. Who knows if this will turn out to be a good deal, but when the MacBook Pro is half-again as much money for the same stuff with fewer options, it wasn't a very hard choice to make.