3 ms·

A Burger Without Heinz

7 points by signa11 4y ago

WorldPeas 4y ago
I get the feeling here, especially as a fellow alt-os user, but think for a second about these sites discovery pattern. Generally my mac aligned friends go to the physical store, or go to apple's site, there is fairly little choice involved, significantly less than the number of choices you can make from (a)cer to hp (z). These sites simply realize that analysis paralysis is generally a problem of win/lin users who'd rather not bootcamp their macs
oldandboring 4y ago
I read this same, or a very similar, article yesterday but I can't remember where it was linked from. Regardless, I agree with the author in that, to the extent that it is actually true that Macs are being shut out from "best of" lists systemically (and he provides some compelling evidence), it's interesting and worthy of some thoughts as to why. I wonder if anyone has asked the authors of these articles why they're doing it. That all being said, the two theories I like the best are: 1. As the author posits, it seems to coincide with Apple switching to its own silicon. If this is not a coincidence, one sinister explanation could be that the tech review/punditry/magazine business remains under the financial influence of the big tech companies, and so this is Intel flexing its muscle in that department. I have absolutely no evidence for this, mind you. 2. We've just reached the point where Macs and "the rest" aren't really thought of by the average consumer as being the same product. Mac users are going to buy another Mac, it's just a question of which one. Mac users don't want to see a bunch of, as the author calls them, "off brand" laptops. (Similarly, a friend of mine's teenage daughters refer to $1000 Android phones as "burner phones" because text messages from them come up in green bubbles.) I suppose there's less of an argument in the other direction (Windows users are probably more likely to switch to a Mac than the other way around) but I'm thinking there's enough here to warrant just leaving the Macs out entirely.
yellowapple 4y ago
A PC without Intel is a burger without Heinz... and that strikes me as a strict improvement. I prefer some quality AMD-flavored dijon mustard on my PC burger, thank you very much.
derbOac 4y ago
For some perspective, this is to some extent happening with all review categories everywhere. There's often no "best X", but "best X for A" and "best X for B". It happens for many review sites now, with kitchen tools and towels and everything (here's one for olive oil dispensers, just as an example: https://www.saveur.com/shop/best-olive-oil-dispensers/ https://www.saveur.com/shop/best-olive-oil-dispensers/). My guess is this is responding to reasonable concerns that there might be "no best X". The cynic in me wonders if it's driven by an avoidance of advertising dollar losses but I don't think that's all of it. They also explain right in the review why someone might not want a MacBook: "MacBooks are even more expensive than Windows ultrabooks, especially if you want to upgrade the memory or storage; Apple’s SSD upgrade prices are so high that we usually recommend looking into cloud storage or an external SSD instead. And as with Windows ultrabooks, our recommended MacBook configuration for most people lacks the processing power to play demanding games." If you look at the prices too, they say at the time of publication the XPS and Air were about the same price. People do complain about the price of upgrading the MacBooks from base, so that's not just Wirecutter. Some people just don't want Macs, or can't have them for IT reasons. It's not about the hardware, but all the network effects that goes with it. Wirecutter is trying to avoid that debate. I own a MacBook (I'm typing from one right now), and almost certainly will buy another one soon. I also don't think I'd go to Wirecutter to make a decision about a laptop. But I think they're catering to a certain audience that treats laptops like they do a coffee maker, and I think they're not completely unreasonable in structuring things that way.

7 points by signa11 4y ago

I get the feeling here, especially as a fellow alt-os user, but think for a second about these sites discovery pattern. Generally my mac aligned friends go to the physical store, or go to apple's site, there is fairly little choice involved, significantly less than the number of choices you can make from (a)cer to hp (z). These sites simply realize that analysis paralysis is generally a problem of win/lin users who'd rather not bootcamp their macs

oldandboring 4y ago

I read this same, or a very similar, article yesterday but I can't remember where it was linked from. Regardless, I agree with the author in that, to the extent that it is actually true that Macs are being shut out from "best of" lists systemically (and he provides some compelling evidence), it's interesting and worthy of some thoughts as to why. I wonder if anyone has asked the authors of these articles why they're doing it. That all being said, the two theories I like the best are: 1. As the author posits, it seems to coincide with Apple switching to its own silicon. If this is not a coincidence, one sinister explanation could be that the tech review/punditry/magazine business remains under the financial influence of the big tech companies, and so this is Intel flexing its muscle in that department. I have absolutely no evidence for this, mind you. 2. We've just reached the point where Macs and "the rest" aren't really thought of by the average consumer as being the same product. Mac users are going to buy another Mac, it's just a question of which one. Mac users don't want to see a bunch of, as the author calls them, "off brand" laptops. (Similarly, a friend of mine's teenage daughters refer to $1000 Android phones as "burner phones" because text messages from them come up in green bubbles.) I suppose there's less of an argument in the other direction (Windows users are probably more likely to switch to a Mac than the other way around) but I'm thinking there's enough here to warrant just leaving the Macs out entirely.

yellowapple 4y ago

A PC without Intel is a burger without Heinz... and that strikes me as a strict improvement. I prefer some quality AMD-flavored dijon mustard on my PC burger, thank you very much.

derbOac 4y ago

For some perspective, this is to some extent happening with all review categories everywhere. There's often no "best X", but "best X for A" and "best X for B". It happens for many review sites now, with kitchen tools and towels and everything (here's one for olive oil dispensers, just as an example: https://www.saveur.com/shop/best-olive-oil-dispensers/ https://www.saveur.com/shop/best-olive-oil-dispensers/). My guess is this is responding to reasonable concerns that there might be "no best X". The cynic in me wonders if it's driven by an avoidance of advertising dollar losses but I don't think that's all of it. They also explain right in the review why someone might not want a MacBook: "MacBooks are even more expensive than Windows ultrabooks, especially if you want to upgrade the memory or storage; Apple’s SSD upgrade prices are so high that we usually recommend looking into cloud storage or an external SSD instead. And as with Windows ultrabooks, our recommended MacBook configuration for most people lacks the processing power to play demanding games." If you look at the prices too, they say at the time of publication the XPS and Air were about the same price. People do complain about the price of upgrading the MacBooks from base, so that's not just Wirecutter. Some people just don't want Macs, or can't have them for IT reasons. It's not about the hardware, but all the network effects that goes with it. Wirecutter is trying to avoid that debate. I own a MacBook (I'm typing from one right now), and almost certainly will buy another one soon. I also don't think I'd go to Wirecutter to make a decision about a laptop. But I think they're catering to a certain audience that treats laptops like they do a coffee maker, and I think they're not completely unreasonable in structuring things that way.