Regarding market share and your friends and family recommendations, you’re thinking first world. Rest of the world wants and can only afford sub-$500 laptops.
I’ve found that the $1000 Mac laptop is worth about $500 after 3 years and the $500 laptop is worth $50. The price difference over time really isn’t that big and the Mac is going to have a better trackpad and display and longer battery life.
Yeah but in the longer term the price trends to $0 either way, and Windows will get software support for longer.
My mom is happily using a Lenovo from 2013 and looking to upgrade because it doesn't support Windows 11 and Win10 is running out of support. A contemporary Mac would have been the 2012 Mac Mini which would have received its final OS update with 10.15 Catalina in 2019, and would have received its final security update in 2022. (Desktop, so no difference in peripherals, etc.)
Incidentally, I actually purchased both the Lenovo and a 2012 Mac Mini (refurb) so I have the pricing data - the Lenovo was $540 and the Mac Mini was $730 - and then both took aftermarket memory and SSD upgrades.
That just means that the not-Mac is way more accessible. The high resale value makes Macs more expensive overall for everybody.
Also a lot of people prefer windows. It’s got a lot more applications than Mac. It has way more historical enterprise support and management capability as well. If you had a Mac at a big company 20 years ago the IT tooling was trash compared to windows. It’s probably still inferior to this day.
If your $1000 MacBook breaks after a year you need $1000 to repair it.
A 500 laptop is probably more repairable and worst case you pay $500 to get a new one. Not to mention battery replacement etc.
The expected total cost of ownership is very high for a Mac. It’s like owning a Mercedes. Maybe you can afford to buy one, but you cannot afford maintenance.
larger initial purchases are harder on the lower income earners regardless of the long term value they offer; that's one of the hard parts about being poor, it also makes positive economic decisions harder to accomplish.
criddell|5 months ago
Marsymars|5 months ago
My mom is happily using a Lenovo from 2013 and looking to upgrade because it doesn't support Windows 11 and Win10 is running out of support. A contemporary Mac would have been the 2012 Mac Mini which would have received its final OS update with 10.15 Catalina in 2019, and would have received its final security update in 2022. (Desktop, so no difference in peripherals, etc.)
Incidentally, I actually purchased both the Lenovo and a 2012 Mac Mini (refurb) so I have the pricing data - the Lenovo was $540 and the Mac Mini was $730 - and then both took aftermarket memory and SSD upgrades.
dangus|5 months ago
Also a lot of people prefer windows. It’s got a lot more applications than Mac. It has way more historical enterprise support and management capability as well. If you had a Mac at a big company 20 years ago the IT tooling was trash compared to windows. It’s probably still inferior to this day.
whatever1|5 months ago
A 500 laptop is probably more repairable and worst case you pay $500 to get a new one. Not to mention battery replacement etc.
The expected total cost of ownership is very high for a Mac. It’s like owning a Mercedes. Maybe you can afford to buy one, but you cannot afford maintenance.
serf|5 months ago