Expensive compared to what, exactly? Car insurance, which doesn't have a world wide chain of stores you can walk into when your car is smashed up? House insurance, which also does not afford you the luxury of world wide stores with commission free staff to assist you when your house burns down?
Most "insurance", if you want to call it that, doesn't offer you the same level of experience, so in what way is it expensive?
My house insurance doesn't teach me how a boiler works so I can use it correctly, or my dish washer, TV, or anything else about the property I own. Apple DO run classes for learning to do just about anything on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. I'd have to only attend one, perhaps two, of those classes for the staff member's time to be worth more than what I paid for my "insurance".
So what are you comparing it to that makes it expensive?
> As it turns out, I've never destroyed any of my own phones
Which of course means no else does, neither.
> shrug This isn't a competition.
Then why did you argue price as a competitive factor in your purchasing decision? That's literally a competition.
It's expensive to pay nearly double for a phone just because they have physical stores where you've gotten phones that you've destroyed replaced for free.
It's expensive to pay nearly double for a phone because you feel you need classes to learn how to use it.
I'm saying it is perfectly fine if you want to spend more money for the Apple experience. And obviously you are fine with that, too. I prefer to use my money on other things. It's not a competition between rabid fans. It's a market for selling chunks of hardware. So yes, they are competing for our dollars. I prefer to maintain my decision-making over where those dollars go. Having special in-store luxury experiences is not why I buy a phone that takes pictures and does other things nicely, too. But it's fine if you spend that money.
Insurance is betting you're going to have something bad happen. Expensive insurance is when the ones calculating the insurance make a bunch of money off you because you pay a lot more than you get out of it. Paying a ton for a low deductible but never making a claim. If you personally don't destroy phones, paying a lot for insurance on them doesn't make sense. I never said no one else should do so, or that no one else destroys phones. Obviously you do. But still not enough to make up for the price premium.
Overall it's not a solid argument for the phone, but you have your reasons for buying it. It just does nothing to discount my reasons for saving my money and buying a different phone.
I'm not being dishonest. I'm basing it on availability. The Pixel 3 I own was purchased from Google Fi for $400. The price right now is $500. Technically the Pixel 3 XL ($600) is the flagship just like the iPhone XS Max / iPhone 11 Max are the flagship. (Looks like you can't buy the XS Max direct any more, so I can't find current pricing.) The iPhone 11 Max starts at $1100. That seems like "nearly double" to me.
Expensive compared to what, exactly? Car insurance, which doesn't have a world wide chain of stores you can walk into when your car is smashed up? House insurance, which also does not afford you the luxury of world wide stores with commission free staff to assist you when your house burns down?
Most "insurance", if you want to call it that, doesn't offer you the same level of experience, so in what way is it expensive?
My house insurance doesn't teach me how a boiler works so I can use it correctly, or my dish washer, TV, or anything else about the property I own. Apple DO run classes for learning to do just about anything on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. I'd have to only attend one, perhaps two, of those classes for the staff member's time to be worth more than what I paid for my "insurance".
So what are you comparing it to that makes it expensive?
> As it turns out, I've never destroyed any of my own phones
Which of course means no else does, neither.
> shrug This isn't a competition.
Then why did you argue price as a competitive factor in your purchasing decision? That's literally a competition.