So, I just spent a few minutes trying to answer the following question: If I were uncomfortable about buying and installing my own RAM, and I went to Google to find a local store that would install RAM for me, what could I find?
I see Geek Squad trucks driving around all the time, and I happen to know (via other more extensive Google searches) that Geek Squad will install RAM for $50, if I miraculously manage to buy the RAM and bring it in to them with the computer. Awesome! Presumably they can also help me find the RAM in their Best Buy store and buy it.
But when I search "geek squad install mac memory" do I get a nice landing page? Nope, I get a generic ad leading to a generic landing page that doesn't mention memory but offers to sell me a $99/year support subscription that includes such helpful stuff as "antivirus". Given that I've just bought an Apple device and - however naive I am - probably understand that this comes with free Genius Bar support, I'm going to click away from that page and never return.
Now, I happen to live in a town with a Micro Center, so I Google up "micro center mac memory", and do I get my landing page? Nope. Top result is an ad directly from Apple for their $400 RAM. Below that is an ad from Crucial that leads to a page which requires me to read words like "DDR" and know that my machine is a "2.2 GHz early-2011" model. Then there's a similar ad from "MacMemory.com" that leads to a page that makes Crucial's look like a model of UX design. And finally there's a bunch of links to Micro Center, several of which lead to computers but not RAM, a few of which lead to catalog entries for RAM complete with the DDRs and the GHz and the scary photos of green circuit boards, but none of which suggest the known fact that Micro Center has a tech shop in house and that shop will install RAM for you.
Even typing "Boston mac memory upgrade" only gives me one local store link on the SERP:
... and that's not a great landing page. Nothing specific to my problem. Most particularly: No price. But they do offer to ask me lots and lots of questions as they get to know me and my very personal problems with my personal computer. Techies: as a non-techie I probably don't yearn to open a dialogue with you, partly because I know I'll be mortally embarrassed by the conversation, and partly out of fear that you will try to convince me to spend hundreds of dollars using words which I cannot understand or rebut. Whereas I know that if I pay the nice Apple guy four hundred bucks my computer will vanish for fifteen minutes, magically reappear with more memory, and that's it.
So my answer is: Apparently Apple gets to charge their prices because nobody else in the league knows how to play this game.
On top of that, you prevent that, if something is wrong, you end up in a blame game (the computer must be defective/you asked for the wrong memory modules/etc).
There also is the possibility that Apple's stuff is better, even though it comes from the same factory. For example, Apple could have every RAM module run for months at above-spec frequency, temperature and humidity to weed out bad modules. I do not think they do such severe things, but I do think (without having any evidence, except for the 'evidence' of their pricing) that they buy slightly/somewhat better batches. That does not guarantee that their products are better, but it will weed out the almost-dead-on-arrival ones.
I see Geek Squad trucks driving around all the time, and I happen to know (via other more extensive Google searches) that Geek Squad will install RAM for $50, if I miraculously manage to buy the RAM and bring it in to them with the computer. Awesome! Presumably they can also help me find the RAM in their Best Buy store and buy it.
But when I search "geek squad install mac memory" do I get a nice landing page? Nope, I get a generic ad leading to a generic landing page that doesn't mention memory but offers to sell me a $99/year support subscription that includes such helpful stuff as "antivirus". Given that I've just bought an Apple device and - however naive I am - probably understand that this comes with free Genius Bar support, I'm going to click away from that page and never return.
Now, I happen to live in a town with a Micro Center, so I Google up "micro center mac memory", and do I get my landing page? Nope. Top result is an ad directly from Apple for their $400 RAM. Below that is an ad from Crucial that leads to a page which requires me to read words like "DDR" and know that my machine is a "2.2 GHz early-2011" model. Then there's a similar ad from "MacMemory.com" that leads to a page that makes Crucial's look like a model of UX design. And finally there's a bunch of links to Micro Center, several of which lead to computers but not RAM, a few of which lead to catalog entries for RAM complete with the DDRs and the GHz and the scary photos of green circuit boards, but none of which suggest the known fact that Micro Center has a tech shop in house and that shop will install RAM for you.
Even typing "Boston mac memory upgrade" only gives me one local store link on the SERP:
http://www.macintoshdr.com/Mac_Doctor/Upgrades.html
... and that's not a great landing page. Nothing specific to my problem. Most particularly: No price. But they do offer to ask me lots and lots of questions as they get to know me and my very personal problems with my personal computer. Techies: as a non-techie I probably don't yearn to open a dialogue with you, partly because I know I'll be mortally embarrassed by the conversation, and partly out of fear that you will try to convince me to spend hundreds of dollars using words which I cannot understand or rebut. Whereas I know that if I pay the nice Apple guy four hundred bucks my computer will vanish for fifteen minutes, magically reappear with more memory, and that's it.
So my answer is: Apparently Apple gets to charge their prices because nobody else in the league knows how to play this game.