Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Brazil forces Apple to include charger with iPhones" video.

  1. Hey, brazilian here. While I do understand some of the questions raised against this objection with iPhones 12 not coming with chargers in Brazil, I'm gonna play the devil's advocate a bit here and perhaps explain a bit why this sort of thing happens. As some will know, Brazil is a highly bureaucratic country. Our laws and government, like many other countries, are highly bureaucratic, but perhaps more than some people might think. This basically comes from a long history of corruption, exploitation, and scams that happened and still happens through the entire brazilian history, but let's cut it down to consumer laws. Our consumer laws are extremely detailed, and scrutiny on paper is always harsh. Just so people know, enforcement is whole other story, but when questions like the iPhone 12 lacking a charger comes up, it has specifically to do with strong precedent cases that I'll explain next. What is being questioned on the iPhone 12 case here is around "forced couple sale" (venda casada), which is a practice that had several rounds in brazilian court cases. Basically, a company that is advertising and selling a product that is incomplete, needing a separate sale for an accessory or something else in order for it to work as advertised. More commonly, it's about a company forcing costumers to buy two similar or different products for a given functionality, but you can see how the case goes around this - if you only buy the iPhone 12 by itself it's missing an essencial component needed to make full use of it - a charger. But this comes from a history of consumer abuse, businesses selling incomplete products intentionally to force consumers to pay extra for overpriced proprietary "accessories", false advertisement promissing functionalities with a base purchase that are not there unless you pay more, etc. Now, yes, there are pro arguments for Apple's case on the environmental cause, but it assumes something that may or may not be true for brazilian consumers - like Louis said, that people at this point probably have a box filled with USB chargers that would work for the phone. Ok, now we have to consider the brazilian market itself to see if this is a reality of the market, or if there are questions to be made around it. First, on statistics, iPhones have somewhere between 10 and 15% marketshare in Brazil - do note, it's 10 to 15% for all iPhone models... you can still find mobile operators, retail deals and whatnot that are going for the first iPhone SE, iPhone 6, 7, etc. People buying the latest iPhone models are a tiny tiny tiny minority of very rich people. You see, it's a different reality compared to Apple dominance in US land. Brazil, like many developing countries, have a majority of Android smartphone users, and it's mostly low end, older models. It has to do with extremely high importation taxes, currency exchange rates, and other factors, but put simply, electronics in Brazil are extremely expensive, particularly brand new stuff, leading to- Second, on price. A flagship device or close to flagship device such as iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max in Brazil is considered an extreme luxury here. I don't personally know anyone who has one or is considering to buy one. Those products range anywhere between 6000 reais (our currency) for the 12 up to 11000 reais for the 12 Max Pro - the starting price, not the full spec'd one, with official chargers compatible with the phone going anywhere from 200 reais (the most basic USB charger) up to 800 reais (newer MagSafe chargers) on the brazilian Apple Store. For context, the monthly minimum wage in Brazil is a little over 1000 reais. So yeah, you can buy a car with the money you pay for an iPhone 12. You can cover your all your basic expenses for months. You can pay half an year rent or more. That's the type of money we're talking about. So, the mentality of someone purchasing an iPhone 12 in Brazil is closer to someone in the US purchasing a Mac Pro, ridiculous as it may sound. Third, perspective difference. Of course, with those prices, the iPhone 12 is probably targeted at the less than 1% rich consumer market in Brazil (more like less than 0.001%), so it is likely that lots of people in that market do have a box full of USB chargers that would work well with the iPhone 12, but it is less true than the US market, and it is way more expensive for brazilians to buy Apple branded chargers. Brand loyalty is also less of a thing in Brazil in comparison to the US, because of that discrepancy in price. As your current economic status is likely more directly related on your ability to buy a smartphone from Apple, brand loyalty comes second. People buying iPhones in Brazil likely want to use Apple branded chargers for their new phones, because the brazilian market is flooded with unbranded, shady, crappy chargers. The perception is, if you are buying an expensive flagship phone from a big brand, be it Apple, Samsung, Motorola, LG, Nokia or whatever, you wanna use the included charger to avoid any potential problems, warranty voidances, and questions that might be raised if some breakage happens. Apple itself recommends that people use their chargers instead of random chinese ones, or ones from other brands and 3rd party (other than the Apple Store sanctioned ones), with fears of malfunction, fires, smartphones getting damaged, etc. With all this considered, you can start seeing why brazilian consumer protection laws are questioning why iPhone 12 models are coming without chargers. It's a different market, a different reality, iPhones are in a different product category and it's overall a different situation in comparison to the US market. On a general sense, USB chargers in Brazil are not as trivial a purchase as it is in the US. People can have multiple gadgets that came with one, but they are less likely to have multiple Apple branded chargers. Way less people here buy extra chargers, external batteries, multi port hubs and stuff like that. Way less people have multiple gadgets that came with USB chargers. Way less people have gadgets from brands that are likely to include reliable, safe, well built chargers. People who have multiple Apple branded devices are a tiny minority, because those products are considered luxury here. You don't have as many people who has or had half a dozen iterations of Apple products.
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  2. eWaste is obviously still a huge issue in Brazil, but considering market size and whatnot, it's not as problematic as it is in the US, particularly on more modern items such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and it's accessories. It's still more on the side of CRT TVs and monitors, old desktop computers, and older kitchen and home utilities (vacuum cleaners, clothes and dish washers, fridges, wall mounted AC, etc). If anything, I think we do have a strong culture of handing older electronics down or selling them so that they keep being used. So you kind actually do want complete packages so that they can handed down by themselves. To conclude, while I do understand there is a case to be made regarding iPhone 12 lacking a charger for certain parts of the world, I do feel it's way less valid for Brazil, considering it's market and the reality of brazilian smartphone users, particularly in the face of prices brazilians have to pay for those, and how it is expected by brazilian Apple consumers to have a charger included in the extremely expensive package, so they don't have to pay extra for extremely expensive accessories. These questions are important to be made, and to be had, but you need to consider where they are coming from, first and foremost. Brazil had an international press beating round earlier this year because of the Amazon fires, which is justified given our current government stance, but it was extremely lopsided and superficial in it's coverage. Current government might not be contributing much to solve the issue, but the issue wasn't created by a single government, and it wasn't a consequence of it alone. Climate change is majorly affecting the climate here in Brazil, but international press chose to make it as if it was the work of a single administration, when they know full well that this is affecting several countries south of the equator. You know extreme events such as bushfires in Australia? Here in Brazil we had several states facing an unprecedented drought, unprecedented in recorded history... so yeah, it's not only because Bolsonaro is an insufferable asshole, which he is. I think because of stuff like that, foreigners tend to have an image of Brazil being a backwards country on environmentalism and whatnot, but this couldn't be further from the truth. We do have huge problems regarding all the same stuff other countries have, but you should know that our clean energy production is double or more than most developed countries, it was in Brazil that environment talks started in the first place (Paris Agreement has some of it's origins here), and countries that are constantly berating us like the US and France have a whole ton of stuff that is way more backwards than our policies and regulations here. Just so people know... yes, Brazil does yet have an extremely long way to go, it has abbhorent problems particularly tied to governments and corruption, it's walking backwards with the current government, and it is deservingly a country that is in development rather than developed. But there are some stuff in Brazil that is far more advanced than most people think. In the case of questioning Apple about iPhone 12 coming without a charger, overall personal opinion, I think the environmental impact of including a charger would be minimal, so it has fallen under consumer protection rules, which may actually be right considering the brazilian market for such devices. I may be wrong on this, but I wanted to offer a different perspective. Links to check and to read more: https://www.apple.com/br/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-12 https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2020/01/03/salario-minimo-em-2020-veja-o-valor.ghtml https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/brazil/2018 https://techinbrazil.com/e-waste-management-in-brazil https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venda_casada
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