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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

#41

Post by akamaka »

Or, more simply, Apple ran out of gold phones because they were rightfully cautious about over-producing an untested color. Just like the first all-white iPhone, there's no rush prioritize the new color while proven ones are already selling as fast as they can be made. Of course, this doesn't make for good link bait.

Is the article racist? Yes, a bit. Only long-term sales data will reliably tell us which colors are preferred in which markets. Right or wrong, the article is rushing to judgement based on flimsy racial stereotypes.

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

#42

Post by the_watcher »

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…

Throughout this thread, people have posted links to evidence that there is a higher demand for gold in Asia than the rest of the world. Ignoring them doesn't chang e Business Insider's piece definitely could be improved by adding some more context beyond "My friend says.." anecdotes, but not everything that is poorly researched is racist.

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

#43

Post by the_watcher »

mikeash wrote: post #37
aeturnum wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here is a good roundup of evidence that gold is more popular in Asia (BI did a poor job of providing non-anecdotal evidence): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431520

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

#44

Post by the_watcher »

akamaka wrote: post #41

Or, more simply, Apple ran out of gold phones because they were rightfully cautious about over-producing an untested color. Just like the first all-white iPhone, there's no rush prioritize the new color while proven ones are already selling as fast as they can be made. Of course, this doesn't make for good link bait. Is the article racist? Yes, a bit. Only long-term sales data will reliably tell us which colors are p…

I don't think the article is racist. Just poorly sourced. It's rushing to judgement based on anecdotes (which are probably rooted in a bit of stereotyping - just in the case, there is some data backing up the stereotype). This comment has a good round-up of evidence that gold is more popular in Asia than elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431520.

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

#45

Post by mikeash »

tokenizer wrote: post #40
mikeash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fe…

"White knight"? Sure, because I couldn't possibly be directly affected by issues like these.

Until and unless the assertion is actually supported, it's racist BS.

I read the article. It completely fails to support its assertions. It talks about behavior the entire world appears to be engaging in, but singles out Asians for no reason.

They're telling a story they've basically made up, and are taking advantage of the "mysterious other" to do so.

This story would not pass muster if it were about black people. The author would get run out of town!

I believe that my points are perfectly valid. There's been a whole slew of articles about "Asians love gold" with absolutely no data to back them up, which are clearly based on a racist narrative rather than anything rational. How is that invalid?

"Wasting many a programmer's time"? That's hilarious. Even if the story is completely true, it's a waste of time to read and to comment about.

Personally, I think pointing out how casual racism is tolerated and ignored in certain situations is quite a bit more useful than the other comments on this article.

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

#46

Post by mikeash »

the_watcher wrote: post #43
mikeash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here is a good roundup of evidence that gold is more popular in Asia (BI did a poor job of providing non-anecdotal evidence): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431520

Did you notice that I already replied to that comment?

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

#47

Post by itsmequinn »

To be fair, the 5th avenue New York store consistently "over-indexes" (as the article puts it) with shoppers of Asian heritage. Until recently at least, it was not very easy to buy an iPhone of any type in many Asian countries, and as a result, many tourists on vacation to the US would buy multiple devices to take home. Even now many Asian countries are among the last to have new Apple products roll out to them. Certainly don't have data to back this up, but I lived in New York for 6 years and took more than the occasional trip to the Apple store and witnessed these types of bulk purchases. Point is, even the "data" this article introduces doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gold.

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

#48

Post by jiggy2011 »

mikeash wrote: post #45
tokenizer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fe…

"White knight"? Sure, because I couldn't possibly be directly affected by issues like these. Until and unless the assertion is actually supported , it's racist BS. I read the article. It completely fails to support its assertions. It talks about behavior the entire world appears to be engaging in, but singles out Asians for no reason. They're telling a story they've basically made up, and are taking advantage of the…

They're talking about geographical markets, not categories of people.

Saying "X is popular in africa" would not be racist either.

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

#49

Post by tokenizer »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #48
mikeash wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White knight"? Sure, because I couldn't possibly be directly affected by issues like these. Until and unless the assertion is actually supported , it's racist BS. I read the article. It completely fails to support its assertions. It talks about behavior the entire world appears to be engaging in, but singles out Asians for no reason. They're telling a story they've basically made up, and are taking advantage of the…

They're talking about geographical markets, not categories of people. Saying "X is popular in africa" would not be racist either.

Thanks for the ray of logic.

Personally, I find it more offensive when people get offended by non offensive things than by ignorant generalizations, like grouping all Asians into a race, by grouping all black people into a culture, by mixing up culture and race (this one is tricky however), etc..

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

#50

Post by ihsw »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #28
ihsw wrote: post #19

It has little to do with the color gold and more to do with the social status. Money spent on home appliance is minimal and an after-thought, and this is because you cannot impress people with your home appliances while you're out of your home. Meanwhile you can flash your Gold iPhone everywhere you go and it implicitly shows everybody around you that you can afford a Gold iPhone. Social posturing is a central part o…

Isn't that prevalent everywhere? Some cultures show off gold, others show off cars and their accessories, others show off the latest tech toys. "Look at me, I have so much income, I can afford to spend it frivolously!"

It's especially prevalent in China. Their one child per family policy has created an entire generation of people with too much money, so extravagance and opulence are approaching and exceeding interesting levels of absurdity.
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