I love +Monoprice and it's my go-to site to buy cables and accessories of all sorts. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the rise of Monoprice is part of the reason that today's iPhones and iPods use a proprietary connector instead of the standard micro-USB found on virtually every other mobile device.
Apple is the most profitable tech company in the world and not so long ago Best Buy was also very profitable. One of the key's to Best Buy's profits was selling ridiculously over-priced cables and other accessories along side no-margin TVs. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple recognized the trend toward generic connectors early. A decade ago, Mac laptops had standard DVI video outputs, Firewire and USB. DVI was eventually supplanted by the mini-display-port which was smaller (good) and unique to Apple at first (bad). Similarly iPods went from Firewire to the 30 pin dock and now the Lightning connector.
By using proprietary connectors, Apple can charge a premium for its own connectors and extract a tax from any other company that wants to get into the business of hooking up to its devices, which is bad for consumers.
How Monoprice Is Eating The Tech World From The Inside Out
An empire built on cheap HDMI cables stretches its reach. Monoprice is angling to be the next huge electronics brand.
Post imported by Google+Blog for WordPress.
It's not just proprietary connectors — lightning has encryption in it to prevent cheap clones. As a consumer, that sort of charging me extra for no additional consumer value is one of the reasons I don't buy Apple crap (the fact that it is expensive and closed are bigger ones though).