Comment by AbidanYre@lemmy.world on NZXT responds to damning Gamers Nexus video accusing it of running a "predatory, evil" rental scam

To the NZXT community. We’ve heard your concerns. We are aware of the recent claims made against us and are actively reviewing the situation. Rest assured, we are committed to addressing this thoroughly and will share an official statement soon

That’s the whole response.

That means “if sales start dropping we might change something”

It doesn’t sound like there’s much that can be changed though. The business model is just ripping people off.

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.

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.

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] "?

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.

the business model is just ripping people off

Right, they said that

“We heard your concerns”

More like: “Oops, someone actually stopped to read our predatory contract.”

We all complain sometimes that people don’t read the article. But when the article can be so easily summed up like this, why should we bother?

Oh, the article is about 4-5x that long before getting to that quote from NZXT’s Instagram feed.

Right, that’s what I’m saying. It’s a rehash summary of the Gamers Nexus vid interspersed with advertisements before getting to the point.

Which is good if someome wasn’t aware of the controversy at all.

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

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NZXT responds to damning Gamers Nexus video accusing it of running a "predatory, evil" rental scam(www.techspot.com)

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