I love the admonition to "stay classy" (not a quote) while you name call people as "rabid fanboys" with "knee jerk emotional reactions".
"The fact is that if you have more relative profit margins than revenues, that more of the money people are paying you are not going to the costs used to produce the product. Thus, you are paying a smaller % of your money toward the product itself, no matter what value you place in having that product."
Newsflash: none of this leads to your conclusion that people are paying for the "brand" as opposed to the product itself.
People pay more for good products and service and experiences and they also pay more for brands and some other things. Companies can also increase profits by cutting down on component costs, leveraging scale, with good recruiting, and good management in a hundred other ways. The fact that one product is more profitable then another doesn't imply any of these in particular. The fact that Apple is so much more profitable generally is taken of evidence that many of them are in play. Dismissing all of this as "paying for the brand" is just ignorant.
"The fact is that if you have more relative profit margins than revenues, that more of the money people are paying you are not going to the costs used to produce the product. Thus, you are paying a smaller % of your money toward the product itself, no matter what value you place in having that product."
Newsflash: none of this leads to your conclusion that people are paying for the "brand" as opposed to the product itself.
People pay more for good products and service and experiences and they also pay more for brands and some other things. Companies can also increase profits by cutting down on component costs, leveraging scale, with good recruiting, and good management in a hundred other ways. The fact that one product is more profitable then another doesn't imply any of these in particular. The fact that Apple is so much more profitable generally is taken of evidence that many of them are in play. Dismissing all of this as "paying for the brand" is just ignorant.