insurance is a form of gambling, and gambling always produces ethical tangles. for instance, I could ask whether it's ethical of Apple to get money from people by playing on their fears that their computer will break. Ethically, they should simply guarantee their product, and not charge extra for the security, yah?

believe me, in any form of gambling the house always wins. Apple has a team of morlocs in the basement running numbers on incoming revenue for Applecare sales, outgoing repair/replacement costs, customer satisfaction and loyalty (and consequent machine sales), and etc. If it wasn't worth it to them, they wouldn't let it happen.

Strikes me as a pretty convoluted (as well as less than highly ethical) answer.. :confused:

I say...Charge him for everything! :
>The AppleCare
>the petrol/diesel used in transport to the Apple Store
>The depriceation of the MacBook
>the inconvinence (50p an hour of MacBook downtime or something like that)
>whatever else you can think of!

Ethical Apple Care -- with a profit
 

I really don’t see the problem.

Apple offers a service; we decide whether or not to purchase it. Apple Care is an insurance far above and beyond normal warranty. Many of us prefer that peace of mind.

Do I expect Apple to make a profit on this service? You bet! Do I think that is unethical? Not by any stretch of the imagination!

Would that be pounds or pence?

I'm not sure what strikes you as convoluted (except that the whole situation is a bit twisted...)

so look, in a perfect world:

• Apple would make a bulletproof product, and stand by it
• customers would shop for quality, and appreciate companies that gave it to them

in the real world, though:

• customers balance quality against price, in a fairly unsubtle manner
• Apple uses lower standards on quality control to keep price down, increasing the likelihood of defective machines
• Apple offsets the cost of replacing defective parts by selling insurance against defective parts
• customers offset the cost of repairs by using that insurance in any way they can

in short, you've taken what is (in a perfect world) a matter of personal pride and mutual respect and turned it into a commercial transaction in which all sides are being a bit greedy. all I'm suggesting to you is that Apple is not going to come up with the short end of this stick.

sorry to disillusion you, but when it comes to monetary transactions, ethics is just another commodity to buy and sell. capitalism sucks. :) that's not to excuse people from being moral, mind you; just a recognition that the modern world creates situations in which morality is moot.

Which pretty much brings us back to my first post on this - "ethics be d@mned"... ;)

Since the damage is paid for, I favour the infliction of exquisite pain as a means of revenge. 'Kneecap' the perp, I say. :rolleyes:

okay I was going to ask, since when does apple care cover abuse.....

There are ways around the system, I have done things for clients in the past. I once cleaned up an ibook that this lady spilled cough syrup all over because she was trying to take care of her sick baby and write her term paper for school at the same time. I cleaned it up and sent it in for warranty repair with no traces of the liquid spill. she was a nice single mom in college so I felt bad for her, and hooked her up.

well, that's too sad... I prefer to be moral where I can do it meaningfully, and be decent about things where ethics doesn't apply. there's more to life than getting away with crap, you know... ;)