These are inappropriate analogies because no-one is expecting to get anything for free; customers are hoping their cameras can be fixed for a reasonable and proportionate amount of money (less than five years after that camera was discontinued).
As for the figures you quote, at this stage I have no idea whether they are realistic or not - I made-up some nonsense numbers for fictional Mercedes cars and you've taken one example posted in the thread and extrapolated from another figure to make it look like an extremely generous policy. Two points:
- the actual exchange amounts for M8s varies considerably, I've read and heard of widely differing amounts depending on all sorts of factors. One generous example in this thread isn't necessarily representative - and that ad hoc inconsistency is part of the problem with the whole exchange scheme.
Anyway I'm not going to pursue this discussion. My own disillusion with Leica's digital cameras and the entire commodity direction in which Leica is headed meant that I sold my digital Leicas and the majority of M lenses over the last couple years. It's not my fight anymore, and I'm definitely not going to go through the antipathy and trolling that seems inevitably to always accompany these sorts of discussions.
Mani, I'm with you on much of this, but the facts are that the sensors were a limited-run item originally, the manufacturer is out of business, and the supply is exhausted. I don't know what folks expect. The offer to replace the camera at a discount, and in some cases a deep discount, seems to me to be a pretty significant policy.
I've had some experience with this exact sort of issue in another area: bikes. I bought a high-end, aluminum frame, dual-suspension mountain bike in 1997. It came with a manufacturer's
lifetime warranty. I have dutifully maintained the warranty and sales receipt all these years. In 2012 I discovered that the frame had cracked. I called the local store that carries that brand and took it in for the warranty replacement. They called the manufacturer who said "It's HOW old? We're not going to honor that!!! We'll sell him a "crash frame" at 15% off list." Obviously, I'm not buying that company's products again...
Of course, that's not the only poor warranty experience I've ever had, but I think discounting a new product up to 60% to replace an out-of-production and out-of-warranty is an amazing offer. I don't see how you can see it any other way.
And again, if you don't see value in Leica, there's not problem there. Don't buy them again... but I don't see how attacking
my choice to see value in the product is valid in any way.
For example, I bought the Fuji X-Pro1 a couple of years ago and used it for eight months. I made about 5,000 exposures with it. It is, in MY opinion, the biggest waste of engineering time and the
worst use of $2,000 I'd ever spent. The camera missed focus on one shoot two out of three times while showing a focus confirmation light, and you can't focus the camera manually using the OVF. For me those are deal-breakers. I'm happy to discuss the issues I had with it for the purpose of letting other people buy it knowing what my experience was, but I don't presume to believe that Fuji as a company was trying to swindle me, is malevolent in any way, or that anyone else who buys the product is either foolish or blind. Nor am i suggesting that the product is junk. It has some limitations that didn't work out for me. That's it. And talk about depreciation!!! The $1800 MSRP X-Pro1 body has lost 2/3 of its value in two years, being widely availalbe used for around $600 now.
All products and all manufacturers suffer from defects, parts shortages, and end-of-life issues. In this case is it solely the amount of cash that one puts into these cameras that is causing so much commotion? Is there really that kind of sense of entitlement... "because I spent $X I should get...?" I don't see any other explanation.
I just don't understand the rancor and angst these issues generate for people who don't even own the equipment, and why it seems to be necessary for folks to condemn the product for merely having a natural lifespan, and the company for making what amounts to a pretty good solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem.
