This is just a list of basically interchangeable hardware/software products. How much does it matter that certain demographics prefer macbook pro to macbook air

This is just a list of basically interchangeable hardware/software products. How much does it matter that certain demographics prefer macbook pro to macbook air or sublime to emacs? The PG quote is talking about things like the WWW or bitmap displays, stuff that is fundamentally different technology, not just measuring the popularity of laptop brands.