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Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

businessinsider.com

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Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#31

Post by the_watcher »

mikeash wrote: post #24
the_watcher wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People in Asia like gold a lot, as evidenced by the demand for the gold iPhone 5S." What about this is racist? Or is looking at data based on location now racist?

Demand for gold is high everywhere. I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that demand or preference for gold is higher in Asia than in the rest of the world. Yet everybody runs with it because "Asians like gold!" as if that's somehow different than anyone else.

"In Australia and China, online Apple Store shipping times for the iPhone 5s rapidly slipped to 7–10 days for all colors and capacities, with immediate unavailability of the 64GB gold version."

Speed of unavailable being reached seems like the best metric available right now, and that suggests more demand in Asia than other places (although it's early and hard to draw conclusions - so I guess I would agree with your point that Business Insider jumped to conclusions a bit, really just seems like Apple wildly underestimated demand for the whole 5S series).

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#32

Post by mikeash »

the_watcher wrote: post #29
mikeash wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not racist if it's backed up by data. So far I have seen no data whatsoever to back up this idea that Asian people prefer gold more than other people in the world. Articles like these simply take a racial stereotype and run with it to the conclusion they want to reach. That's racist.

Isn't this data? "In Australia and China, online Apple Store shipping times for the iPhone 5s rapidly slipped to 7–10 days for all colors and capacities, with immediate unavailability of the 64GB gold version." It's not big data in the Facebook/Twitter sense of the word, but in this case, how quickly unavailability is reached seems to be the best data point.

This completely ignores the fact that the exact same thing happened in the US and probably every other 5S launch country.

That gold is preferred in Asia is not under dispute. What I dispute is the idea that it is preferred more than in other countries. I've yet to see any evidence for this, but that doesn't stop all of these articles from making the claim anyway.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#33

Post by skyebook »

jerf wrote: post #18
mikeash wrote: post #13

The pervasive casual racism when discussing the gold iPhone is just astounding. If news outlets were talking about black people this way, there would be riots in the streets. Why is this considered acceptable?

Are you speaking in general, or accusing this article in particular of having racism in it?

I'd argue the title is probably the worst part because singling out a demographic without mentioning that they're talking about said demographic while using bizarre phrasing makes it sound almost laughable. In writing a piss-poor title it just sounds like someone not giving due-respect to X billion people. By the way, Asia likes gold? Continents can like things now? I need to read more on plate tectonics.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#34

Post by simonh »

mikeash wrote: post #23
simonh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, please grow up(1). What specifically in this article are you calling out as casually racist? Was Mr. Lian, who is quoted as saying "Chinese people like Gold" being racist about his own race? My wife has said much the same thing to me. She's Chinese, though now a naturalised Brit. (1) I apologies to my esteemed HNers for that, but it seems appropriate and if I take a karma hit for it, so be it. It was worth it.

This article takes a racial stereotype (Asians love gold!) ignores confounding factors (turns out, lots of people like gold, even non-Asians!) trots out a token Asian (some of my best friends are black!) and produces no evidence whatsoever to support its claims. In fact, the article itself basically admits that the entire premise is full of shit: "...gold in Asia is perhaps even more fetishized than in the West." "Pe…

Get a grip. This is a news article, not a PhD thesis.

Yes, gold is fetishized in the west. However the fact that it's even more fetishized in the East is overwhelmingly obvious to anyone what actually knows what they're talking about. Including actual Chinese people. My Chinese relatives hold a significant amount of their life savings in Gold. This is quite normal over there. In Hohhot, my wife's home town, you can buy small gold bricks in many department stores. They have little sheep stamped on them because that's a lucky sign.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#35

Post by aeturnum »

mikeash wrote: post #24
the_watcher wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People in Asia like gold a lot, as evidenced by the demand for the gold iPhone 5S." What about this is racist? Or is looking at data based on location now racist?

Demand for gold is high everywhere. I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that demand or preference for gold is higher in Asia than in the rest of the world. Yet everybody runs with it because "Asians like gold!" as if that's somehow different than anyone else.

Unless I misread the article, it seemed to claim that gold iphones sold much more quickly in asia than other markets. Observing that fact and say, "that region probably likes gold more than other regions," is not racist. If you were to get off a plane in hong kong and say to the first person you see, "Hey, everyone here loves gold right, do you wanna buy a gold iphone?" That would be racist.

Populations do things, and it's ok to say that they do things. It's not ok to assume individual members of that population do those same things based on their ethnicity.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#36

Post by tokenizer »

mikeash wrote: post #30
GFischer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red and Gold are the Chinese lucky colors. India values gold disproportionately as well. Those are such well known facts, maybe the authors didn't think they needed to explain them https://www.google.com/search?q=gold%20in%20asian%20culture http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Gold-in-Chinese-... http://heryyansen.hubpages.com/hub/The-significance-of-the-c... In India, gold is usually part of dowrys. (I read a…

Which of these is supposed to support the idea that it's disproportionate? Of course they love gold. Everybody loves gold. Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. But nobody's talking about that, because they'd rather talk about Asians. If it can be demonstrated that cultural preferences have translated into a disparate demand for gold iPhones in Asian countries, then and only then can this claim be made…

> Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too.

That's racist!

^ This is what you sound like ITT...

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#37

Post by mikeash »

aeturnum wrote: post #35
mikeash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for gold is high everywhere. I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that demand or preference for gold is higher in Asia than in the rest of the world. Yet everybody runs with it because "Asians like gold!" as if that's somehow different than anyone else.

Unless I misread the article, it seemed to claim that gold iphones sold much more quickly in asia than other markets. Observing that fact and say, "that region probably likes gold more than other regions," is not racist. If you were to get off a plane in hong kong and say to the first person you see, "Hey, everyone here loves gold right, do you wanna buy a gold iphone?" That would be racist. Populations do things, an…

Where, exactly, does it say that gold sold out more quickly in Asia?

All I see is that it said gold sold out quickly in Asia. Which of course it did, just like in the rest of the world.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#38

Post by mikeash »

tokenizer wrote: post #36
mikeash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of these is supposed to support the idea that it's disproportionate? Of course they love gold. Everybody loves gold. Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. But nobody's talking about that, because they'd rather talk about Asians. If it can be demonstrated that cultural preferences have translated into a disparate demand for gold iPhones in Asian countries, then and only then can this claim be made…

> Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. That's racist! ^ This is what you sound like ITT...

What's your point?

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#39

Post by mikeash »

simonh wrote: post #34
mikeash wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article takes a racial stereotype (Asians love gold!) ignores confounding factors (turns out, lots of people like gold, even non-Asians!) trots out a token Asian (some of my best friends are black!) and produces no evidence whatsoever to support its claims. In fact, the article itself basically admits that the entire premise is full of shit: "...gold in Asia is perhaps even more fetishized than in the West." "Pe…

Get a grip. This is a news article, not a PhD thesis. Yes, gold is fetishized in the west. However the fact that it's even more fetishized in the East is overwhelmingly obvious to anyone what actually knows what they're talking about. Including actual Chinese people. My Chinese relatives hold a significant amount of their life savings in Gold. This is quite normal over there. In Hohhot, my wife's home town, you can b…

It's "overwhelmingly obvious" yet nobody can produce any evidence for it, and especially not for the specific claim that the gold iPhone is in more demand in Asia. Even the linked article can't bring itself to straight-out say that gold is more fetishized in Asia. It weasels out of the claim! Is it really "obvious" then?

Until and unless this stuff can be backed up with something resembling actual evidence rather than "everybody knows", articles like these are racist. Calling out a single racial group for behavior everybody is engaging in is pretty obviously so.

Re: Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

#40

Post by tokenizer »

mikeash wrote: post #38
tokenizer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. That's racist! ^ This is what you sound like ITT...

What's your point?

That you're just making threads toxic with your white knight attitudes.

Saying that BI is racist because they generalize the Asian market is what's wrong with the world. Not only do you generalize an entire continent by reducing it to race (racist against all Asian races?), but you then go on about how they can't generalize.

Almost all markets generalize. They need to. It's how you do business. If target age 24-32 female, white, etc...

Stop being such a white knight and attempt to read the article and bring valid points up for discussion instead of derailing it and wasting many a programmers time.

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