Practically every company in the world does this. A company that knows its market can design a product for each segment, targeting the poorest and richest customer alike.
Agreed.
Manufacturing cost is hardly relevant to the end user; what matters in any market is how much customers are willing to pay.
Well, I'd say both are important.
I'm sure the Macintosh IIsi was a bad machine, but "it didn't cost any less to manufacture!" isn't a valid argument.
I understand your points, and agree with them - that product range are created by companies, and manufacturing costs are not the whole story. But when companies create product ranges where perceived benefit doesn't match up with actual cost for high-involvement purchases, people feel, well, ripped off. The IIsi case and this thread demonstrate that. We can all buy components for only slightly more than Apple, so there's little opportunity to hide the cost. It's a risk companies take. Apple bet that the IIsi's form factor would sell it (and probably sunk a lot into R&D) but instead of being enamored with the small size (like the Air), people were cheesed off at how it was stunted. I'd also argue that with the case of computers, the cost of components does relate more directly to consumer decisions than with other products. A macbook pro compared to a macbook has, simply, higher-quality parts: chicklet keyboard for the macbook, machined, aluminum, responsive keyboard for the pro. 13" screen for the macbook, 15" for the pro. 60-gig for the macbook, larger for the pro. And so on. These are acceptable distinctions between product lines that relate to a better user experience, certainly, and also, yes, more expensive hardware. It's not the whole story of cost, but it's also not "hardly relevant to the end user."
Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die. -- C.S. Lewis
