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Google Slashes Prices of Its USB-C Headphone Dongle Following Minor Outrage (mashable.com)
At its hardware event last week, Google unveiled its two new flagship smartphones: the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. While these devices feature high-end specifications and the latest version of Android, they both lack headphone jacks, upsetting many consumers who still rely heavily on wired headphones. To add insult to injury, Google announced a USB-C adapter for a whopping price of $20 -- that's $11 more than Apple's Lightning to 3.5mm adapter. This resulted in some minor outrage and caused Google to rethink its decision(s). As reported by 9to5Google, Google decided to slash the price of the dongle by over 50%. It is now priced at a more reasonable $9.
Newsflash: Google drops price of headphone adapter from 2% to 1% of the price of the phone. I agree that $20 is way too steep for the adapter, and $9 seems more reasonable (though it should probably be more like $5). However, Google's original attitude towards pricing of the dongle really just underscores how overpriced the phone is in the first place.
To sell overpriced accessories, or just because they're lemmings. Seriously, $20 or $9, both are more expensive than the $1 it would have cost to leave the always-available jack on the phone.
Both Google and Apple are pushing $1000 phones which are huge. Tiny $100 basic phones have headphone jacks. Any excuse that it's size or cost is bullshit rationalization.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The existence of the dongle disproves that, because the analog hole is unchanged.
It's been my limited experience with headphone purchasing that there are only two kinds: the cheap-ass ones (up to $50), then there's a huge gap and you have the high-end artisanal $3000 ones designed by Taoist monks on rice paper with endangered squid ink, made with alluvial gold connectors and endorsed by the latest rapper who hasn't yet been shot by any of the other rappers.
Anyway, with all their data mining, Google couldn't tell that people would be outraged at the original set price? Did they even think to ask anyone, or did they run around the boardroom table and get the opinions of a bunch of people who earn more money in a week than most of us see in a year?
This story is about Google lowering the price on something that provides that analog hole, so I'm not quite 100% certain that your logic holds up.
I do not know anyone who wants a thinner phone. I know several people who love iPhones, kept them without cases, who now use a case. They now use a case solely because the phone is easier to hold with a little more thickness and heft. Apple wants them thinner. Goggle want them thinner. Advertisers seem to want them thinner. But do we really want them thinner? Or, are we taking the bad with the good?