3 ms·

>because people do not need $2000 Facebook and email machines Devil's advocate: if that is true, then why are macbook pros such a hot sell? I'm typing this her

by zalzane 13y ago

>because people do not need $2000 Facebook and email machines Devil's advocate: if that is true, then why are macbook pros such a hot sell? I'm typing this here in a college library's lobby. When I look around, I see roughly 3/4 of the laptop-using students are using a macbook pro, with a few macbook airs littered around. If I were to walk around and glance at what people were working on, it'd probably be something like 70% youtube/facebook and 30% using some word processor. My point is that the consumer's decision to buy or abandon a product isn't solely driven by how good the product is, the value of the new item as a "status icon" also has to be taken into account. All you need to get the customer to justify that $2000 price tag is a culture of rabid consumerism and the garauntee that they will be cooler than their friends if they buy this extremely expensive laptop that does all sorts of things they will never ever use. In your example involving the 2006 PC and the new iPad, I would argue that a huge contributor to the consumer's abandoning of the PC is because it's nowhere near the potency of a status icon as an iPad is.

X4 13y ago
People who believe in being able to buy social status are the ones perfectly fooled by advertisements! Someone can be butt ugly, poor and stupid, but still have the highest social status and popularity in most social environments. What makes one an attractor of popularity is demonstrating power, will and the ability to achieve what you want. Who would be more popular? A) A rich guy who thinks he can buy friends, by inviting everybody to an expensive cocktail to an exclusive restaurant? B) A guy who own lots of expensive high-tech and luxury car + his own house? C) A guy with charme and charisma, who can make anyone feel special, or have a fun time, even in the dirtiest place? Choose yourself. I believe you all experienced A,B and C already. But I would rely on the scientific evidence that C) has a higher long term chance of staying an attractor of popularity. (I'm sorry, I couldn't put the references together, but hope you understand) Side story: A weird guy in my old class possessed a bluetooth wireless headphones with integrated mp3 player in 2006, a 3000EUR laptop and all sorts of other very expensive gimmickry. That didn't make him cooler at all. People still didn't like him and it just made him more vulnerable to attacks of the some of the more primitive pupils.
- corin_ 13y ago
  He said that a product being a status icon justifies a high price, not that a high price makes something a status icon. edit: parent comment has completely changed since I replied
- true_religion 13y ago
  If you can't achieve C, you sure can use your money to achieve A or B.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    Also if you're lucky enough to be able to carry off C, you're more likely to have options A and B at your disposal.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > People who believe in being able to buy social status Trust me, you can buy social status. If you pay enough, you have the status. > Someone can be butt ugly, poor and stupid, but still have the highest social status and popularity in most social environments. Most social environments he exposes himself to, yes. Most social environments, no.
- marincounty 13y ago
  Yea, guys can buy people out of their league, but their wives are usually misserable, and cheat. Women have a hard time doing the same. Actually, the whole success thing works in reverse for women. They become less attractive with money, unless they earned that money with their mind. Even then the men these women want still don't want want them. I was trying to soften the blows I will get for this thread. In Marin, I see so many attractive women who settled for some fugly dude just because he has money. Maybe, that's what keeps guy's striving for the next Facebook? I could go on and on about this subject, but I'll get clobbered.
NoPiece 13y ago
I'd say laptops have been improving quite a bit in non-computational ways. Weight, battery life, and screen quality particularly.
mixmastamyk 13y ago
A MBP can be brought around to show how cool you are, a Dell Workstation not so much. Maybe if somene builds a handle for the Mac Pro borg cylinder. ;)
wvenable 13y ago
When you start collage, you normally get a new computer. But otherwise I agree with your premise. A high powered desktop PC is no longer a status symbol for anyone compared with laptops, tablets, or phones.
3pt14159 13y ago
Because MacBook Pros have HDMI output, more pixels, larger hard-drives, and run Starcraft.
serf 13y ago
Because people like new things. My grandma taught me the saying "More money than sense." . It's proven incredibly wise
shirro 13y ago
The MBP is one of the most functional devices available. The wanky, hipster appeal is way overplayed. Plenty of people use them inspite of their image. Phones satisfy the mobile convergence thing between organisers, phones, cameras and handheld games. Tablets satisfy the "computer as a bicycle" vision of Jobs and bring portable computing to the masses. But neither are really full featured enough for a developer or a college student. When it comes to a full featured, keyboard equipped, programmable device there is bugger all that is light, powerful, has a long battery life and ships with a decent environment (posix, term, ssh) out of the box. Dell's XPS 13 DE delivers a bit of the picture but it doesn't have the quality bundled iWork apps that would appeal to a student and has worse battery life. They are getting there though. The rest of the laptop market is hindered by shipping with Windows only and the difficulty of getting pre and post-sales driver support for the developers and students who require an environment like Linux. The industry has really fucked themselves trying to keep to the model of the glory days. Hopefully Steam will help set things straight by creating a large mainstream market that more niche users like developers, students and scientists can benefit from. Manufacturers are going to have to stop the race to the bottom and start building less models, higher quality and in bigger volume if they are to compete with Apple in price, quality and profitability. And they are going to have to explore well integrated Chrome OS and Linux packages and work on developing drivers with better performance and power efficiency.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  > The rest of the laptop market is hindered by shipping with Windows only and the difficulty of getting pre and post-sales driver support for the developers and students who require an environment like Linux. The industry has really fucked themselves trying to keep to the model of the glory days. Quite good for those of us that work across multiple OSs. Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled and get two OS in a laptop with the minimum of fuss.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled and get two OS in a laptop with the minimum of fuss. And far less battery life. I often run Ubuntu or Windows on my MBA with VMWare to compile some software. It's one of the best methods to soak your battery empty quickly.
collyw 13y ago
While many people but them for the technical side as pointed out in other replies, there is no denying that other buy them as a status symbol, in the same way they will buy a BMW for a car.

by zalzane 13y ago

X4 13y ago

People who believe in being able to buy social status are the ones perfectly fooled by advertisements! Someone can be butt ugly, poor and stupid, but still have the highest social status and popularity in most social environments. What makes one an attractor of popularity is demonstrating power, will and the ability to achieve what you want. Who would be more popular? A) A rich guy who thinks he can buy friends, by inviting everybody to an expensive cocktail to an exclusive restaurant? B) A guy who own lots of expensive high-tech and luxury car + his own house? C) A guy with charme and charisma, who can make anyone feel special, or have a fun time, even in the dirtiest place? Choose yourself. I believe you all experienced A,B and C already. But I would rely on the scientific evidence that C) has a higher long term chance of staying an attractor of popularity. (I'm sorry, I couldn't put the references together, but hope you understand) Side story: A weird guy in my old class possessed a bluetooth wireless headphones with integrated mp3 player in 2006, a 3000EUR laptop and all sorts of other very expensive gimmickry. That didn't make him cooler at all. People still didn't like him and it just made him more vulnerable to attacks of the some of the more primitive pupils.

corin_ 13y ago
He said that a product being a status icon justifies a high price, not that a high price makes something a status icon. edit: parent comment has completely changed since I replied
true_religion 13y ago
If you can't achieve C, you sure can use your money to achieve A or B.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  Also if you're lucky enough to be able to carry off C, you're more likely to have options A and B at your disposal.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
> People who believe in being able to buy social status Trust me, you can buy social status. If you pay enough, you have the status. > Someone can be butt ugly, poor and stupid, but still have the highest social status and popularity in most social environments. Most social environments he exposes himself to, yes. Most social environments, no.
marincounty 13y ago
Yea, guys can buy people out of their league, but their wives are usually misserable, and cheat. Women have a hard time doing the same. Actually, the whole success thing works in reverse for women. They become less attractive with money, unless they earned that money with their mind. Even then the men these women want still don't want want them. I was trying to soften the blows I will get for this thread. In Marin, I see so many attractive women who settled for some fugly dude just because he has money. Maybe, that's what keeps guy's striving for the next Facebook? I could go on and on about this subject, but I'll get clobbered.

NoPiece 13y ago

I'd say laptops have been improving quite a bit in non-computational ways. Weight, battery life, and screen quality particularly.

mixmastamyk 13y ago

A MBP can be brought around to show how cool you are, a Dell Workstation not so much. Maybe if somene builds a handle for the Mac Pro borg cylinder. ;)

wvenable 13y ago

When you start collage, you normally get a new computer. But otherwise I agree with your premise. A high powered desktop PC is no longer a status symbol for anyone compared with laptops, tablets, or phones.

3pt14159 13y ago

Because MacBook Pros have HDMI output, more pixels, larger hard-drives, and run Starcraft.

serf 13y ago

Because people like new things. My grandma taught me the saying "More money than sense." . It's proven incredibly wise

shirro 13y ago

The MBP is one of the most functional devices available. The wanky, hipster appeal is way overplayed. Plenty of people use them inspite of their image. Phones satisfy the mobile convergence thing between organisers, phones, cameras and handheld games. Tablets satisfy the "computer as a bicycle" vision of Jobs and bring portable computing to the masses. But neither are really full featured enough for a developer or a college student. When it comes to a full featured, keyboard equipped, programmable device there is bugger all that is light, powerful, has a long battery life and ships with a decent environment (posix, term, ssh) out of the box. Dell's XPS 13 DE delivers a bit of the picture but it doesn't have the quality bundled iWork apps that would appeal to a student and has worse battery life. They are getting there though. The rest of the laptop market is hindered by shipping with Windows only and the difficulty of getting pre and post-sales driver support for the developers and students who require an environment like Linux. The industry has really fucked themselves trying to keep to the model of the glory days. Hopefully Steam will help set things straight by creating a large mainstream market that more niche users like developers, students and scientists can benefit from. Manufacturers are going to have to stop the race to the bottom and start building less models, higher quality and in bigger volume if they are to compete with Apple in price, quality and profitability. And they are going to have to explore well integrated Chrome OS and Linux packages and work on developing drivers with better performance and power efficiency.

pjmlp 13y ago
> The rest of the laptop market is hindered by shipping with Windows only and the difficulty of getting pre and post-sales driver support for the developers and students who require an environment like Linux. The industry has really fucked themselves trying to keep to the model of the glory days. Quite good for those of us that work across multiple OSs. Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled and get two OS in a laptop with the minimum of fuss.
- danieldk 13y ago
  Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled and get two OS in a laptop with the minimum of fuss. And far less battery life. I often run Ubuntu or Windows on my MBA with VMWare to compile some software. It's one of the best methods to soak your battery empty quickly.

collyw 13y ago

While many people but them for the technical side as pointed out in other replies, there is no denying that other buy them as a status symbol, in the same way they will buy a BMW for a car.