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> Hi! I’m Johnny Average Consumer. > This phone was a thousand dollars!

It's not accurate to describe the average consumer as being in the thousand dollar phone market. They are premium products, and not one that the average consumer can afford. That's one reason why Apple's phone global market share wavers around 10-15%.

Anyone buying AirPods has already bought an iPhone (a thousand dollar phone), so I think you can replace ‘Johnny Average Consumer’ with ‘Billy iPhone Consumer’ and the rest of their points still hold

And seeing that the Apple Watch is already generating more revenue than the iPods at peak, there are lot of people with a $350 Watch, a $600+ iPhone and AirPods.

> Anyone buying AirPods has already bought an iPhone (a thousand dollar phone)

Not everyone buying an iPhone today is buying a current, model (carriers are selling back to the iPhone 8), even if they are the base iPhone 11 is about $700 not $1000, and even flagship models are often bought on promotion with steep discounts (AT&T has one with, in the right circumstances, a $700 discount on the 11 Max Pro, bringing it to around $400 on the promo.)

Hi! I’m Bonnie Average Consumer. Nice to meet you.

> Ok, 3.5" headphones are objectively: cheaper,

Perfect, I have no money.

> simpler mechanically,

That's nice I guess

> more reliable,

Neat

> easier to use,

Oh yeah I can just plug it in, easy.

> easier to connect to different devices,

Yeah I can just plug it into those, lots of stuff has that sound hole.

> never run out of battery or require charging,

that's true, plus I couldn't use them while they're charging, so if I forget it's a big issue.

> you can't lose 1/3 of them,

That is something that could happen.

> and oh, yeah, they tend to sound better at the same price point.

I'm no audiophile so I'd probably spend less to still get a decent pair.

> A set of Shure SE315s will blow AirPods Pro out of the water on sound quality and noise isolation.

$300 is pricey for mini-speakers

> Yes, wireless headphones are wireless. That's all though.

They play noises too I've heard.

> None of this makes AirPods Pro a platform.

Okay.

> They're neat wireless headphones. Among the best wireless headphones probably. But that's still all they are.

Okay.

I guess my point is we can make up any kind of person, call them and average consume and present them with thoughts and opinions that match our own.

Your comment was nothing but dismissal under the name of 'an average consumer'

Yours, Average Consumer

Wow, it's almost like there are millions of different people with a wide range of preferences and wealth! Maybe there is room in the market for this product after all. Maybe that explains how it has already sold in the tens of millions.

It's funny because I own both AirPods and 315s. I always have thought "Why did I pay so much for the 315s when I can get a crappy ol pair of wired headphones for $20 that work well enough." There wasn't a fantastic bluetooth connected option, I have owned 6-10 bluetooth wireless solutions, but nothing matched airpods.

> Wow, it's almost like there are millions of different people with a wide range of preferences and wealth!

Isn't it also almost like discussing the average consumers is a way to consciously limit the scope of the discussion so that it isn't about some <1% of the world's population?

> I don’t care. I’ll pay for convenience. This phone was a thousand dollars!

Did you mean for "Average Consumer" just to be your name? Because an average consumer certainly did not pay $1000 for their phone. Already here you represent an outlier.

> What about that horrible wire? It gets tangled in my pocket and I rip my headphones out when I run.

About 20% of Americans engage in activities like running or jogging. Again, you're an outlier.

> I only have one device.

https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/v...

I can't say for sure that you're an outlier hear because these figures represent a mean and not a median. I'm taking "the average consumer" to mean "the median consumer" because "the mean consumer" doesn't exist.

> I charge my AirPods Pro every few days. This is a non-issue.

https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/Music-Listening-2019.pdf

Again, I'm not sure that you are an outlier here because of averages vs medians.

If you spend 18 hours per week just listening to music, If even half of that is spent listening to music from your only device, you'll be charging your airpods at least twice a week.

If airpods are additionally used for calls, some two hours a day, you'll have to charge them even more often.

If AirPods are an ubiquitous platform for augmented hearing, "adding context" to what you hear, you'll be charging them at least twice a day.

> Did you mean for "Average Consumer" just to be your name? Because an average consumer certainly did not pay $1000 for their phone.

I should have made it clear that I am in Australia. AU$1k ≈ US$700.

That's closer to what my peers are spending. They are outliers, though, living in a developed country, working well-paying jobs, almost all tech nerds. I have a hard time imagining that the world wide average or even a national average for Australia is anywhere near that. That said, I haven't found any non-paywalled comprehensive survey data on the subject so I'll leave it at that.

This seems promising, in case anyone has an account: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283334/average-smartphon...

> Hi! I’m Johnny Average Consumer.

> I don’t care. I’ll pay for convenience. This phone was a thousand dollars!

The average US smartphone consumer is paying like $500 (substantially less anywhere outside of North America) and saying their limit is substantially less than even that, if you look at both actual average price data and surveys of what consumers say they are willing to pay, so (1) not buying a $1000 phone, (2) not aware of how much they are actually paying for a phone, and (3) not as willing to pay extra for convenience as you suggest.

> I only have one device.

I'm happy I can easily use my headphones with a 9mm plug on my crappy work laptop as well

Surely your laptop has Bluetooth?