1) Big Oil is in an industry where demand is highly inelastic, while demand for consumer electronics is far more elastic.
2) Big Oil is the subject of huge direct and indirect subsidies. Apple benefits to some extent from the fact that they don't pay for some of the inherent costs of their profit-making activity (disposal of iPhones, etc). The energy industry generally, and the fossil fuels industry in particular, don't pay for a lot of the inherent costs of their activity. From an economic point of view, dollar of uncompensated environmental damage is as good as a dollar of direct subsidies. The BP settlement, at less than what BP would've had to pay in damages, was probably $10bn+ subsidy. I haven't seen statistics for the oil industry, but the indirect subsidies in the coal industry run to the $300-$500 billion/year range (http://www.fastcompany.com/1727949/coal-use-costs-half-a-tri...). I'd imagine oil is in the same ballpark.
1) Big Oil is in an industry where demand is highly inelastic, while demand for consumer electronics is far more elastic.
2) Big Oil is the subject of huge direct and indirect subsidies. Apple benefits to some extent from the fact that they don't pay for some of the inherent costs of their profit-making activity (disposal of iPhones, etc). The energy industry generally, and the fossil fuels industry in particular, don't pay for a lot of the inherent costs of their activity. From an economic point of view, dollar of uncompensated environmental damage is as good as a dollar of direct subsidies. The BP settlement, at less than what BP would've had to pay in damages, was probably $10bn+ subsidy. I haven't seen statistics for the oil industry, but the indirect subsidies in the coal industry run to the $300-$500 billion/year range (http://www.fastcompany.com/1727949/coal-use-costs-half-a-tri...). I'd imagine oil is in the same ballpark.