In article <VAoTs.83720$532....@newsfe03.iad>, "
Dani...@teranews.com"
Most manufacturing and distributing businesses do similar things. I know
people working in the book publishing / distributing industry, and they
get at least 50% off the price of that company's books and 30% off any
other company's books, they are also allowed to take any of the thrown out
books for free (these are old stock, end-of-line stock, replaced resource
books, etc. or ones that are "too damaged" to be sold, which often means a
bit o a scratch on the cover). The reseller staff also get discounts.
I also work with some companies and organisations that run various events
(fun runs, dinners, etc.) and the workers always get free T-shirts and
other sponsored products. Plus of course sponsorship itself means freebies
get given out (I've got a small collection of branded wristwatches, pens,
note pads, T-shirts, etc. that were part of various sponsorship deals over
the years).
Employees at Apple and their resellers get cheaper prices and are often
given new products free. People registered as Apple Developers also get
cheaper pricing.
The real issue is that it's the normal retail consumer who ends up paying
for all these freebies in higher product prices. :-(