On that note, Rossmann is a curious character. He openly and variously despises Apple’s hardware choices and policies, yet to my memory, that’s his shop works on. Are the economics of repairing Apple products that strong or is the man is a true masochist?
Watch some of his videos. He has a lot of insight about the subpar quality of Apple devices, about the outrageous lies of Apple Genius Bar quoting people thousands of dollars for repairs that take him 5-10 minutes, for apple’s efforts to make the devices non serviceable, withholding schematics, controlling access to replacement parts etc.
In my mind, it makes sense that Apple won't repair a device that has signs of water damage without replacing all potentially affected parts (the bit about humidity is a discussion all on its own). Water damage can surface in a myriad of ways, and the last thing they want to do is charge a customer for a fix, only for them to come back demanding a refund because their device is broken again.
Rossmann has a small enough operation that he can handle this on a case by case basis. Apple operates at scale, so the fact that they have blanket policies like this makes sense.
Of course the debate changes when Apple makes it so that you can only use them for repairs.
An additional perspective is that Rossman’s 5-min free repair cost Apple $1000+ in revenue.
Apple can totally scale repair but it won’t be as cheap and profitable.
So what they scale instead is lying to their customers.
The Genius Bar employee presented a lie as a certain fact. They didn’t say that there’s more to be found out, that humidity indicators are sometimes unreliable etc.
They went with the highest grossing lie.
That’s a policy.
Having such policies calls for legislation protecting the customer and giving independent repair some chance.
He runs a shop that supports many employees and himself, so, yes, the economics obviously work in his favor. One doesn’t need to like the choices of a company to offer to service their products.
And given that each repair could, in theory, eat into the profit margins that Apple enjoys (either via 1st patty repairs or through a customer not buying a replacement device) it would make logical sense to do so if he dislikes Apple that much
If my memory is correct, he explained that this was where most of the market was (especially on the neighborhood of NYC he lives in), and it was easier to fix a bunch of Apple models, rather than thousands of different Android brands/models.
“First world problems” is also a related concept. Our priorities and judgements are very much borne from the larger context of our individual and group experiences.
Even the very definition of “greatest stuff in the world” is highly dependent on one’s particular circumstance and priorities.
