this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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not defending all of nzxt's deal here or anything but tbf, there is some substantial risk involved with shipping a $1000-2000+ product that will only ever depreciate in value, and only getting a small fraction of that up-front. and the ones most likely to use a 'subscription' or 'rental' for a relatively expensive pc are those who wouldn't qualify for a credit card with sufficient limit to purchase on its terms (or have already maxxed theirs), a retail store's payment plan (like no interest over 12mo deal at bestbuy or similar), or a buy over time service (like affirm).
Did you watch GNs video? They go into detail on numerous predatory tactics. What you say makes sense in isolation but when paired with all the other awful things, at that point it's a pattern
That substantial risk is entirely voluntary though. Nobody is forcing them to rent out PCs and they aren't the first rental or rent-to-own company to engage in predatory behavior.
Yeah, there is a lot of risk. So they could instead just not rent out last gen PCs at exorbitant prices. They could, say, donate that inventory to a children's hospital and write off the value.
Writing off a loss or donation doesn't give you anywhere near the full value of that product, much less any profit. Why would a for-profit company essentially give away a sizeable chunk of their inventory for no actual monetary benefit?
You absolutely can write off the full value of the product as a charitable donation, and I said nothing of profit. Of course they wouldn't financially profit, but they would be getting rid of inventory they are sitting on and spending money storing, and obviously wanted to offload.
And as for why, are you serious? Good PR is not valueless. Can you imagine the stark difference in headlines between "NZXT launches program with rates worse than an illegal loan", versus "NZXT supplies gaming computers to children's hospital" or even "NZXT new major sponsor of [insert huge eSports league] "?
Writing off the full value allows you to deduct that value on your taxes. The actual money you save on your taxes is the value deducted multiplied by your tax rate. For NZXT this will likely be well south of 20%.
They would be better off just selling the inventory at discounts that will actually move it but won’t because it would cannibalize their new hardware sales. Overall they are just deeply mismanaged and chose to do something horribly immoral to try to get out of it.
I'm not trying to make an argument that donating the inventory would have been profitable for them. I think we're talking past each other. Have a good day.
Not only not profitable, but a massively money-losing venture. Hence why no corporation does this.
I think it's a strange assertion to say no corporation does this when there definitely ones that do. Money losing is a matter of perspective. Companies use loss leaders to generate other income all the time. Donations are very good PR. Anyway, it was just one suggestion of something they could have done that wasn't the scummiest thing possible.
My biggest issue with the story is that you don't even know what computer parts you'll get. Same models were going out with different parts. That's not an opinion of questionable pricing, just outright fact that they don't give a shit.
No. That's not relevant in the end. Because you would never even think of trying to run a business like this unless the economies of scale work in your favor. And once that happens, there literally isn't any fucking risk left.
The so called "risk" taken by capitalists is nothing more than a brazen lie. Besides, I don't give a fuck either way; none of this justifies me getting exploited so those fuckwits can have a pissing match over who can kill the planet first.
I will never so much as play devils advocate for sociopathic assholes. I don't want to understand their perspective. The results of their actions prove their true intent.
NZXT mitigates that risk by making you sign a contract. If, upon cancellation of the service or non-payment, the computer was damaged, destroyed, or not returned NZXT would just come at you like any creditor. They could sue you and if that didn't workd they could sell the debt to collections at a smaller loss.
They could do a rent to own program where you own it after X payments. They could keep their current pricing and bake in a small premium to account for the risk.
But no, they're greedy and the product shouldn't exist as is.
Right, they said that