Charging Bricks and Headphones Now Sold Separately — Pixel Envy

The problem I see with this is that many people will add one to their order “just in case”. It is like when a fast food place puts a napkin dispenser out in the open and people take a whole stack back to their table. If, however, the napkins are provided from behind the counter, people often take less. Yes, it sometimes means that you will have to ask for more, but it is better than wasting many.

This is absolutely true, more people would get charging bricks from Apple if they went with my suggestion. How many more is of course a guess, but I would definitely concede this.

The message here is basically you don’t have to change your habits and expectations to reduce humanity’s impact on the planet, and I think that sets the wrong tone. If you need a charging brick now, you’ll have to spend some money, and that might cause you to think twice about whether you actually need that brick.

I think this is the thing that gets people upset. Customers need to make sacrifices and pay more if they want to get all the things they used to, but big companies don’t give up anything in return. Apple spends less per phone on accessories and less for shipping, and sells the phones for the same price as last year (or more in the case of the iPhone 12 vs 11). Meanwhile, customers are asked to make the sacrifice. Sure, the bricks are $10 less than before, but when they used to be free with the phone, it is simply more expensive for users.

I’m 100% on board with being more environmental, and I would have skipped the charger myself, but I get antsy when it’s suggested that users need to spend more or do with less to be environmental, and corporations are able to charge the same for less and be lauded as heroes for making us do better.

Also noting for the recond Nick is lovely and this is exactly the sort of "dueling" link posts that I love that blogging as a medium enables.