Re:Apple gets smacked by $450M e-book price-fixing fine
by Qwertious on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @02:55AM
(#11244026)
Apple would appeal a $1,000,000 court case until and unless they expected to lose more money by fighting it than by just paying the fine. And essentially, $500mil is more than enough money for keeping on some lawyers for half a decade.
Still, it's worth comparing to how much money they make. So, a half-billion fine once in the last few years, and they made $18billion this quarter:
http://moneymorning.com/2016/01/26/q1-apple-earnings-2016/
I honestly don't see Apple being seriously hurt by this.
Re:Apple gets smacked by $450M e-book price-fixing fine
by sangnoir on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @10:17AM
(#11245690)
Apple partisans act as if the money is coming from Apple's petty-cash drawer. My point is somewhat similar to your: in that they would do anything not to pay the half a million dollars.
Comparing to the numbers in their last FY (Oct '15), the settlement is 0.94% of their annual profit. I too wouldn't be "hurt" by a 1% fine of my net annual income, but I'd rather put it to better use.
Apple cared enough to try and appeal the case to the highest possible level (SCOTUS). To paraphrase a commenter on Ars Technica: $500,000,000 is a lot of iPads/MacBooks sold. All down the drain due to anti-consumer shenanigans.