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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Apple even presented that stance in court, but they seem to have rejected it because of the USB C plug rather than the older style.

They also didn't buy that it reduced waste since they sell it separately.

Personally, it would reduce waste for me. I have a ton of those plugs and cables in many combinations.

But I could see how some people might not have it yet.

Perhaps Apple should have offered it for free for a couple years if you ask for it, rather than include it by default, and maybe they would have been better off here.

Edit: I'm wondering if I misread it. Is it a proprietary plug on the charger end of the cord? If so, that makes a little more sense, though there are generics for it for a while now anyhow.

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> They also didn't buy that it reduced waste since they sell it separately.

But that's a bizarre take from the judge as well. Obviously the claim isn't that no charger is needed. It's that you need way fewer chargers than devices, so shipping a charger with every device is indeed just waste.

> Is it a proprietary plug on the charger end of the cord? If so, that makes a little more sense, though there are generics for it for a while now anyhow

Iphones come with a Lightning (proprietary) to USB-C (standard) cable but no USB-C (or any other) brick. So there shouldn't be anything proprietary needed to plug it in.

There are definitely ways out of this for Apple. Obviously they can go back to including the brick in certain jurisdictions like this. The other good solution, as you say, is to ask the customer if they need one, and offer them something else, like a 10% off coupon, if they reject the charger. Otherwise everyone will simply say "yes" even if they don't need it.

I know a lot of people would take one, even if they don't actually want it, just because it's free. But I know there are things like that in the past that I haven't opted into because I realized I really didn't need another one sitting around, or even just didn't need a first one.

Oculus' free rubber insert for example. I have a third party one that I like and didn't need the one Oculus offered, so I didn't take them up on it.

It'll partially reduce their cost right now and get people used to the idea that it won't be there in the future, instead of this shock where it's just not there, but expected.

I will help you reduce waste, send me all of your extra plugs and cables and I will pay the shipping.

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