It doesn’t need to cost 10x more for them to produce RAM for their RAM upgrade pricing to be reasonable. The competition is charging similar prices for similar RAM specs, and in several cases they’re charging more.
And there are plenty of cheap garbage computers using cheaper and slower RAM. But more comparable competing products such as the Microsoft Surface devices are charging the same, and often more than Apple is for RAM upgrades. Comparing cheap computers that use cheap RAM cards against more expensive computers that use soldered RAM isn’t a good comparison. But when you look at other high-end systems in a similar weight class to the MacBook Pro that also use soldered RAM, those are generally charging nearly the same, the same, or more than Apple.
Silly question, because Apple can make more money selling $200 upgrades from 8GB to 16GB and another $200 selling upgrades from 256GB to 512GB. Then even more with an upgrade to an MPro chip machine from a 16GB/512GB M chip machine. It is all there for anyone who can “hold their nose” and pay. If you can’t afford to pay then that is why there are cheap windoze machines.
That’s an assumption. We don’t know what the profit margin looks like on the new base spec MacBook Pro, especially with how much they reduced the price. The display and other hardware didn’t likely get that much cheaper. So they’re probably making a much smaller profit on the 8GB base spec models, but their high sales combined with the sales of the more expensive models probably mostly make up for it. Who knows if that would be the case though if their margins on the base spec would be reduced by adding more expensive RAM.
A. It’s very nice hardware, not “junk”. B. You’re assuming it’s $20 but you don’t know how much it actually costs, C. The CPU will be the main bottleneck on both 8GB and 16GB MacBooks as in around 7-8 years, the CPU (and possibly other hardware as well) will likely not support the latest macOS or features. D. Most people upgrade their computers about every 5 years. E. Lots of Macs don’t land in a dumpster, lots of people gift their old Mac to someone else who could still use it, or sell it used. Throwing a laptop that holds its value as well as a MacBook does in a dumpster would be silly, and I highly doubt that most people do that. Besides, older Macs can be traded in for recycling where the materials can be reused to make new Macs.
That assumes more people will put up with that nonsense and pay the extortional upgrade prices than will skip buying an Apple product altogether and buy something else.
Absolutely. Only when people stop buying the baseline configuration, or Apple is scared that will happen as a result of some new update, will Apple update their baseline. It doesn’t matter the cost of the BOM, or better future proofing, or optimizing performance for some user. It all comes down to the power of the customer’s pocketbook.
First my RAM usage, I have few computers, my laptop and my HTPC with 16 GB, and my main PC with 64GB.
And I’ve had lots of browser windows open on my 8GB M1 Mac with around the same number of tabs and never had an issue or saw the beach ball.
I forgot to mention that I had a macbook pro about 5 years ago, and trust me 8 GB RAM is not enough for me, a mac fanboy won't convince me that 8/256 is enough period.
An 8GB M1 Mac outperforms 16GB Intel Macs even from around a year prior. This has been my personal experience, as well as what I’ve seen in numerous videos as well. The M-Series Macs perform a lot differently. And nobody’s stopping people like you from buying higher RAM spec models, but 64GB RAM specs shouldn’t be base spec, that would be ridiculous. 8GB is a good base spec. It’s more than enough for most base spec users. I’m not what most people would call a light user, I have run my 8GB M1 Mac with Blender, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer with dozens of very large 8K files open, lots of browser tabs open, and several other various smaller apps open at once, and never saw any kind of slowdown or beach ball. I’ve also used it for 4K video editing. The average base spec user will likely not be doing those kinds of workflows. And the 8GB base spec also seems to sell very well with high customer satisfaction.
A lot of videos also show how crap an 8 GB RAM M1/M2 work with multitasking.
A lot of videos are skewed with “multitasking” that most people wouldn’t do. Like trying to render 8K video, open over 30 browser tabs, and open tons of high res photos all at once. Most base spec users aren’t editing or rendering 8K video. Let alone expecting to render 8K video and throw over 30 high res photos rendering at it as well. Most of those videos are clickbait with unrealistic “multitasking” workflows designed to make it look slow. But I’ve used my 8GB M1 Mac with at least 30 browser tabs open, over 30 high res files open in Affinity Designer (mostly 8K vector files with thousands of layers), over 30 high res photos open in Affinity Photo, and several other smaller apps running, and with all of those things open, I never experienced sluggish performance, never saw the beach ball, or anything like that.
I upgraded my old PC which had 32 GB RAM, to me was starting to get slow, so just because you think 8GB RAM is more than enough for you, that doesn't means 8GB RAM is more than enough for most people.
You think people aren't doing that? You do honestly think people are looking at Apple machines costing as much as a high end PC, gawking at such pathetic specs, and then deciding to buy something else instead? My only viable computer replacement is an Apple and yet I cannot justify paying such outrageous rates to upgrade to the specs I want.
Apple as a company absolutely has the right to do this... that's never been what we argue against. However when a company does something unpopular we as customers also have the right to complain. And yet we interact with fellow customers (maybe) that keep asserting that some people simply don't need all that, and that those that complain about high upgrade costs must either put up or shut up.
