I am convinced that there are paid posters on here. Why would anyone defend a billion dollar corporation so vehemently and not earn a single dime?

To be fair, the very reasonable take is that if there was guerilla marketing campaigns, they are most likely being handled by external agencies and not Apple directly.

And, this isn't making them look particularly dumb. It is making them look dumb the way that most people make themselves look "bad" when they list their biggest weakness in a job interview. Silly Apple, not seeing how fantastically great their product is and how much people are dying to have it.

The most serious point in favor of this being organic nonsense is just the sheer lack of any actual evidence that it isn't, but the case is being wildly overstated, in part because we're using the non-standard term "psyop" to describe what I'd consider to be mundane marketing practices.

At this point I feel like there is no reasonable way to draw a conclusion. However, viral marketing like this is common and in fact, incredibly easy. This is done through PR services (and even shadier sources) all the time... I'm a bit surprised people on HN are unfamiliar with how utterly common the practice is, it wasn't new when I first came into contact with the industry over a decade ago. The hallmark of this is very similar articles appearing suddenly through the Internet and in the news. It's often not just random plagiarism. This is why the news is constantly running stories about how suits are back in vogue and other vain crap like that.

It’s not complicated psyops. It’s basic marketing.

”Oh wow our product is so amazing we can’t keep up with demand you better buy before we run out”

> a complicated psyop

It's not a “complicated psy-op”, promoting viral stories is the basics of marketing in the age of social media…

Tbh, I won't be surprised that 1 is true; it does not look that far fetched. Organizing scarcity is already a well-established strategy in the marketing playbook; there are examples of other big organization playing a way longer game to conquer a market (see for instance how Japan became a coffee nation https://www.thetakeout.com/how-nestle-brought-coffee-to-japa...)

There are usual Apple sheeps ... and then it's you.

WOW, this is some remarkable (would rather use different word starting with R) desperate attempt to somehow turn the reality upside-down,of Apple being overpriced unrepairable unupgrade-able junk sold through pure marketing of exploitung insecurities of losers by selling them something that makes them feel "elite".

Unsolicitated "send via iPhone" SMS footer is perfect example.

> Which is more likely? I’ll cheerfully stipulate Apple is pure evil, serves cooked babies in their cafeterias, whatever it takes to discuss based on reason rather than big-evil-corpos