> Welcome to a future where only voices that broadcast their grievances loudly over social media get answered.
It's not exactly new. A prime example of that is Apple who tells you that it doesn't help to go to the media with a story, but time and again complaints go un-answered until somebody manages to hook in media attention (either through dumb luck or through their pre-existing clout).
Really? Apple? I've only interacted with Applecare a couple of times and had a great experience both times. And internet forums (Reddit, for example) are full of people singing the praises of Apple's post-sales support.
He might be referring to manufacturing defects, some of which didn't get proper attention until it became a reputation stain. Many people encountered the known GPU issue in 2011 macbooks just after the warranty expired. Here's a 2014 article about Apple's dodging attempts (http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/08/12/apple-ignores-call...). The next year, they finally got a replacement program (http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/widespread-2011-macbook-p...). Notably, after a class-action lawsuit was filed.
AppleCare is good at a lot of things, but Apple's still been known to dodge responsibility for a lot.
It took five years to acknowledge that the Radeon X1900 XT video cards in the 2006/2007 Mac Pros were inherently faulty. They would regularly overheat and fail. Apple based forums spread out the internal case numbers that tracked the issue. In the end, five years later, anyone that had one was given a free replacement. Five years is a very long time in the terms of hardware obsolescence.
The only reason I did well in that situation is because I had the AppleCare warranty they kept replacing the video card no questions asked.
My 2007 MacBook Pro was given the option for a free repair or replacement as well for issues with the nVidia video chip overheating and desoldering itself. The problem with that was that it also took eight years for them to finally acknowledge the issue. However, I missed the short warranty window in which people were allowed to claim it.
Apple has a horrible track record for owning up to their problems.
It's not exactly new. A prime example of that is Apple who tells you that it doesn't help to go to the media with a story, but time and again complaints go un-answered until somebody manages to hook in media attention (either through dumb luck or through their pre-existing clout).