> PCs are inherently upgradeable, but it seems like consumers would rather treat them as disposable electronic devices, judging by the success of barely-upgrade

> PCs are inherently upgradeable, but it seems like consumers would rather treat them as disposable electronic devices, judging by the success of barely-upgradeable Macs and other laptops. Disposability is a side-effect of non-upgradeability - consumers don't explicitly want either of those, they just want a good product. And a good product can't be upgradeable. See Daring Fireball's article on this: http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/new_apple_advantage http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/new_apple_advantage The money shot is, "Apple offers far fewer configurations. Thus MacBooks are, to most minds, subjectively better-designed — but objectively, they’re more designed. Apple makes more of the choices than do PC makers."