Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 98 posts

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#61

Post by RandallBrown »

ksk wrote: post #37
RandallBrown wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets say you buy one of these recycled phones that Apple has already deemed unfixable. Maybe it mostly works, but the screen occasionally blacks out or there's a bunch of dead pixels. Maybe the battery dies almost immediately. It's Apple's reputation that gets tarnished by this.

What a silly reason to ruin the environment! Apple (and to be fair most electronics companies) are already designing irreparable land-fill-ready devices. We have companies who are willing to do the hard work of repairing/refurbishing them to prolong their life-span, only to have Apple block them.

Apple already sells refurbished phones. Presumably the phones they send to the recycling company they've deemed unrepairable to their standards.

I don't think this company is necessarily selling working iPhones.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#62

Post by brmgb »

ygjb wrote: post #50
arrosenberg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes that a problem? Both of those programs increase Apple's control and power in the market.

It's a problem since a large part of Apple's value proposition is positioning it's devices as luxury, high-end devices. Having obsolete and used devices generally available on the market at a large scale dilutes this brand. It's a pretty awful perspective considering the harm that this kind of consumerism does to the environment. I have also seen this sort of behavior fist hand when a team I worked with insisted I de…

> Having obsolete and used devices generally available on the market at a large scale dilutes this brand.

I don't think it applies in this case.

Despite its marketing, Apple very much is a mass market company and you can't really both be mass market and luxury. Also, there are already plenty of second hand iPhones on the market. So much that I seriously doubt it is supply constrained.

If I had to guess, it's probably more about avoiding competition in the SE segment than protecting the brand.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#63

Post by robjan »

arrosenberg wrote: post #43
qppo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would kneecap first party recycling and trade-in discounts. Apple's incentive to provide those services is to reduce the size of the secondary market.

What makes that a problem? Both of those programs increase Apple's control and power in the market.

They don't want to either cannibalise their sales or make their brand suffer from "prole drift" [0]

[0]: https://archive.is/Kyyf1

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#64

Post by alexfringes »

btrask wrote: post #60
bilbo0s wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having gone through this exact situation with corporate attorneys before, I can tell you there is more than one contract in force here. Believe it or not, if you tell customers you will recycle old products for them, you'd better not sell them instead. When you told them you would recycle the old products, you actually made a contract with them. Don't call it recycling if there is any chance at all that you may inste…

> Believe it or not, if you tell customers you will recycle old products for them, you'd better not sell them instead. Legally, I'm sure you're right. But on a practical level, what do you think recycling is ? If you fish something out of the trash and reuse it, congratulations, you have recycled it in the most efficient way possible. It's like these recyclers are "too good" at their jobs. I thought market forces wer…

I say to you: “mind throwing this battery in the recycling on your way out, I care about its harmful materials not seeping into the environment” and you say “yes” but then decide “this battery could still power my nephew’s toy car for a bit”.

But then your nephew throws it in the regular trash eventually.

You’ve broken your promise to me. If you’re also the world’s most valuable public company you’ve made that promise to your shareholders and used it to increase your brand perception. It seems reasonable that you’d like to make sure you keep it, no?

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#65

Post by ksk »

RandallBrown wrote: post #61
ksk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a silly reason to ruin the environment! Apple (and to be fair most electronics companies) are already designing irreparable land-fill-ready devices. We have companies who are willing to do the hard work of repairing/refurbishing them to prolong their life-span, only to have Apple block them.

Apple already sells refurbished phones. Presumably the phones they send to the recycling company they've deemed unrepairable to their standards. I don't think this company is necessarily selling working iPhones.

Yeah, repair companies often buy these broken devices so they can salvage parts. Its really sad that they're forced to do this as Apple forces third-party parts manufacturers to only sell parts to them. Its ironic, since Apple doesn't do board/circuit repair anyway, they just replace the entire mainboard, generating even more e-waste.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#66

Post by naravara »

pwinnski wrote: post #7

Apple is probably legally in the right here, since the recycler violated their contract. But Apple seems very much in the wrong here on an ethical level. If the devices have resale value, then they should be resold, not destroyed! Reduce and Reuse are both higher priorities than Recycle.

> But Apple seems very much in the wrong here on an ethical level. If the devices have resale value, then they should be resold, not destroyed! Reduce and Reuse are both higher priorities than Recycle.

I can't imagine Apple just not selling stuff that's perfectly capable of being sold as a refurbished item. My assumption is that if it's in the hands of a recycler then it's probably not meeting some kind of quality assurance standard for battery life, reliability, etc.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#67

Post by btrask »

alexfringes wrote: post #64
btrask wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Believe it or not, if you tell customers you will recycle old products for them, you'd better not sell them instead. Legally, I'm sure you're right. But on a practical level, what do you think recycling is ? If you fish something out of the trash and reuse it, congratulations, you have recycled it in the most efficient way possible. It's like these recyclers are "too good" at their jobs. I thought market forces wer…

I say to you: “mind throwing this battery in the recycling on your way out, I care about its harmful materials not seeping into the environment” and you say “yes” but then decide “this battery could still power my nephew’s toy car for a bit”. But then your nephew throws it in the regular trash eventually. You’ve broken your promise to me. If you’re also the world’s most valuable public company you’ve made that promis…

Isn't that still better than your nephew buying a brand new battery and then throwing it in the trash? Even if he only got a week's worth of use out of the old battery.

Reusing things doesn't change the overall recycling rate. It just reduces the demand for new things (which is why Apple dislikes it). Knowing how to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order!) is much better than some sort of cargo cult destruction of working devices.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#68

Post by derrick_jensen »

btrask wrote: post #67
alexfringes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say to you: “mind throwing this battery in the recycling on your way out, I care about its harmful materials not seeping into the environment” and you say “yes” but then decide “this battery could still power my nephew’s toy car for a bit”. But then your nephew throws it in the regular trash eventually. You’ve broken your promise to me. If you’re also the world’s most valuable public company you’ve made that promis…

Isn't that still better than your nephew buying a brand new battery and then throwing it in the trash? Even if he only got a week's worth of use out of the old battery. Reusing things doesn't change the overall recycling rate. It just reduces the demand for new things (which is why Apple dislikes it). Knowing how to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order!) is much better than some sort of cargo cult destruction of wor…

The argument isn't that its better than buying a new battery, the argument is that it isn't conveyed in the contract.

EDIT: Also, knowing this happens without Apple adjusting their own terms may be grounds for fraud, so somebody has to change their language anyways.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#69

Post by black_puppydog »

robjan wrote: post #63
arrosenberg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes that a problem? Both of those programs increase Apple's control and power in the market.

They don't want to either cannibalise their sales or make their brand suffer from "prole drift" [0] [0]: https://archive.is/Kyyf1

The question was probably not why this is a problem for apple, but why anyone else but apple should consider it a problem.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#70

Post by black_puppydog »

ascot_attn_atol wrote: post #22
pier25 wrote: post #17

Not allowing the resale of used devices should be illegal. Not only because of the environmental impact but also because this is a way for Apple to control the market.

Reselling devices is good. Taking devices that were sent to you to be recycled and then reselling them is bad.

That's, like, your opinion, man.

In my opinion (and I see many sharing the sentiment here) if apple are gonna send perfectly usable devices for recycling instead of reselling them, then that is bad.

Hence I would argue that their right to have a contract upheld weighs lower here than literally everyone else's right on the planet to not waste resources.

We have many things you simply are not allowed into contracts. High interest loans, organ sales, you name it. Forcing someone to destroy a usable device, polluting the environment and using up resources as a result just might become one of those. I'd be in favor actually. I don't value apple's stock more than the planet. But then I also don't own any of it, so there's that...

Post reply on HN