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Originally Posted by Gorf
The original "checkmate" story illustrates that perfectly - it was possible to buy A500s in a regular shop, ripp them apparat, throw away the case, put them in a new custom made case, sell this "big box" for far less than a A2000 and still make profit ...
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With no Zorro II bus slots, no accelerator or bridgeboard slots, no high wattage power supply, no 5.25" drive bay, etc.
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Commodore tried to basically rip off Amiga fans and enthusiasts with the big box Amigas...
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Commodore goes to special effort to make the A500 cheaper, then gets accused of 'ripping off Amiga fans' for selling professional machines at normal prices. What about other manufacturers like IBM, Compaq, Apple, Acorn? Were they also 'ripping off' their customers for not selling premium machines dirt cheap?
Some of my friends bought A2000s and didn't complain about the price because it was similar to name-brand PCs. Then they bought 3rd party cards for it that were often ridiculously expensive compared to the PC equivalents, but that was expected due to the much smaller market.
The majority of A500 owners were not expecting to upgrade them except for perhaps some trapdoor RAM and an external floppy drive, so an A2000 was a waste of money for them no matter what the price (assuming it wasn't sold at a loss). Once could argue that Commodore should have produced a mid-range machine without some of the stuff almost nobody wanted (bridgeboard slots, full desktop size case etc.) but high-end users often
did want that stuff.
The biggest 'ripoff' was the A3000, yet it was still about the same price as an equivalent Compaq 386DX.