Categories
Capitalism, Class, Inequality

What’s REALLY Weird About This iPhone Story?

iPhones are apparently the Beanie Babies – remember them? – of the phone world.

This story about the iPhone has been making the rounds.  

As most people in both hemispheres know by now, the latest iPhone has just been.. what’s the word?  Released? Unveiled? Unleashed? Anyway, it’s out and yours to own.

And apparently, if you go to an actual store to buy one on the day a new iPhone is let forth into the world, Apple only allows customers to acquire two claim tickets.

It’s a neat trick, this, akin to shaving off those crucial five cents off the $100 shoes, because $99.95 is SUCH a huge saving.  Allow people to ONLY get claim tickets to buy two of the millions of phones the company will be making till the next iPhone is trotted out, and you’ve suddenly convinced them that this is a rare gem that must be acquired. iPhones are apparently the Beanie Babies – remember them? of the phone world.

In Pasadena, CA, a man set about circumventing the two-ticket rule by hiring homeless people to stand in line for $20 each. Why?  Because this is what he does: He buys iPhones and sells them for “more, much more.”  

The outrage hinted at in the headlines and expressed by many people is that homeless people were being paid to stand in line for iPhones.

Okay.  Sure.  Paying homeless people money to stand in line. That’s the really weird and shocking part of a story about people waiting days and nights in line for a phone.  Keep believing that, people.

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Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net