Apple goes all-out to defend themselves in a lawsuit that would have cost them $0 just to settle with the guy before it went to court.
http://www.seattlerex.com/seattle-rex-vs-apple-the-verdict-is-in/
A tale of random Apple fuckery
A similar story can be told about every other company, probably. It's not like they hired those guys to be there, hired a legal team to support them, just for this case. They are on the payroll. This just game them something to do so they aren't surfing facebook in their cubicles. I don't think this cost Apple any more than it would have had they fixed the problem.
We had to make a shit ton of phone calls and sit on the phone for a VERY long time doing the same thing over and over before Dell would replace a PC that was simply defective. They knew it, we knew it. But they tried to beat us into submission by making us do ridiculous things. It wasn't until we started saying "No" and that we wanted to talk to the next supervisor up (and the next one, and the next one, etc) that we finally got someone to fix it. So, it's not like Dell spent a bunch of money to not fix our PC. Those people were going to get paid if we called or not.
We had to make a shit ton of phone calls and sit on the phone for a VERY long time doing the same thing over and over before Dell would replace a PC that was simply defective. They knew it, we knew it. But they tried to beat us into submission by making us do ridiculous things. It wasn't until we started saying "No" and that we wanted to talk to the next supervisor up (and the next one, and the next one, etc) that we finally got someone to fix it. So, it's not like Dell spent a bunch of money to not fix our PC. Those people were going to get paid if we called or not.
Dell sold us a basically defective PC once... I went through their shitty tech support a couple of times, then fired off an email to michael@dell.com, and the PC was replaced the next day. No lawyers telling me to go fuck myself.
HP is a wall of tech support shit.
HP is a wall of tech support shit.
It's not me, it's someone else.
A similar story can be told about every other company, probably.
Most companies, yes. There are some exceptions, and a lot of examples wouldn't be so obviously fraudulent by the company. In fact, I'd say a lot of stories you hear wouldn't be about the company, but rather a customer service rep they employee.
Anyway, what's telling about the story isn't that it's about a major company, the fact that it's Apple is the interesting part. As the writer points out, they were the rebels taking down "Big Brother", yet they've become the worse example of "Big Brother" on the planet. All of their equipment is so fucking proprietary so they can control everything. Even their SimCards are a different size. Their customer service is a joke. Their prices are outrageously high for inferior hardware. Etc.
All of that is hilarious when compared to what their core audience thinks of them, and their founder.
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell