We've seen this story play out before. Every phone manufacturer has had the bright idea of introducing a small flagship. They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it. Internet people get excited. And when launched - no one buys it. They learn their lesson and move on.
It does not surprise me that the things that "internet" people want are not generally popular. What I don't understand is why that means they can't make money selling them anyways. Companies used to make money when the entire cell phone market was _dramatically_ smaller than today. Sure, maybe only 5% of customers want that phone, but 5% of a huge market is still a lot of people! I just have trouble believing that there isn't room for serving that segment of the consumer base.
Yeah, that is surprising and frustrating to me as well. I don't mind being a smaller market. Hell, I don't mind paying more because of it. But companies these days are largely unwilling to have a steady, sustainable business in a smaller market. The insatiable desire to capture the biggest market at all times leaves society as a whole much worse off, because if your needs aren't the most common - you simply cannot find anyone who will do business with you.
Apple never released a flagship iPhone Mini, i.e. an iPhone Mini Pro. If you wanted good cameras (like the more useful 2x or 3x lens, rather than the mostly-useless 0.5x lens that they added to the base models), you had to get the large or larger phone.
I would've bought the 13 Mini Pro if it had existed, but camera quality wasn't something I was willing to compromise on.
Slight tangent, I thought nowadays everyone is (are?) internet people. Everyone's on their phone all the time. Even if it's tiktok or instagram, why aren't brands spending to reach this audience.
That's sad. I've always felt that by engaging in a community, I'm being weird somehow. Even mainstream social media, I don't see my peers commenting anything. When I comment I feel like I'm being weird.
