Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is fair. OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms), which has shafted poor countries-it's disgraceful that a Swedish costumer pays the same price for an iPhone than a Portuguese costumer while making several times as much money every month.
> OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms), That's not true, where are you imagining this from? Hardware certainly doesn't cost the same, at the very least there are different VAT levels, but also pricing is adapted to the local market (literally just checked, i can get an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 for 300€ le…
This is insane. What prevents grey market arbitrage? Why wouldn't hardware from the country where hardware is cheapest immediately get posted on the local equivalent of eBay in the country where it is most expensive?
In any case I had no idea hardware margins were so squishy. For software, yes, profits are maximized by reducing unit prices where incomes are lower (since otherwise you won't sell any), but that's enabled by the fact that the marginal cost of unit production is very nearly zero and you're still making money even if you sell it for 25% of the rich-country price. That's obviously not the case for a laptop