Adrian writes,
<What Apple needs to do is get product placement on shows depicting
working class families. There is the impression that only rich people
can afford one. Or woulld that tarnish the Mac mystique ?>
To do this would be a case of "false advertising," if you ask me. I know
too many people who liked Macs and wanted them originally, but bought PCs
because PCs were within their budget and Macs were too expensive. Then
they got used to the PCs and stuck with 'em. I myself was almost priced
out of being a Mac owner. To wit --
In the mid-80s when all my friends were getting computers, I went
computerless because I'd gotten spoiled on the Mac I was using at work, a
Mac Plus on System 6 with a 40 MB HD, which at that time was
state-of-the-art Mac. I didn't like my friends' computers enough to want
to spend money on and own one; to me they were garbage compared to a Mac.
I, however, decided to wait to buy a computer until I COULD buy a Mac. So
I didn't even own a computer until 1995. Yes, I'm an extremist. I was in
love with a Mac and would settle for nothing else in a computer. But I'm
not with the majority on most things anyway, so why should this be
different?
That first Mac I got ALMOST broke my budget too. It was a Performa 475,
OS 7.5.3, 500 MB HD I think and 8 or 16 MB RAM (I don't remember
anymore). Brand new in the store it cost a thousand bucks and at first I
almost didn't buy it -- too expensive. But the salesman had a floor model
and said he'd knock a hundred bucks off if I'd buy that, so I did, and
that's how I got my first Mac. Took me three more months to get a printer
though, because the Mac almost busted me to the poorhouse even with the
"discount." But OK, now that I had the Mac, I could go on the Internet
and have fun with it in the meantime.
At the time I got my 7200/120 a couple of years later, they were selling
for about the same as my 475 did at the time I bought that (a grand, more
or less), but the job I had then was slightly better-paying, and Apple
had already released "higher" Macs, i.e., the 7200/120 was no longer the
Mac state-of-the-art -- and the store I bought my particular 7200/120
from had their few remaining 7200s on sale to get rid of them. Now
compared to a Performa 475, the 7200/120 WAS a serious upgrade and
PRACTICALLY like buying state-of-the-art, but I did happen to look at the
newer Macs they also had on display (higher 7xxx, 8xxx and even a 9xxx),
and no way in a zillion years, even though I was making slightly better
money then, could I have afforded to buy one of those. And the Mac
laptops were astronomical!
So now I have a G3 ("finally"?) as of this spring. But I was able to buy
it used off the Swap List for $35 plus shipping -- if LEM and the LEM
lists existed "way back when" I don't know, but up till this year I
didn't know you could get ANY kind of Mac without breaking, almost
breaking, or at least seriously straining your budget -- unless, of
course, you happen to be rich. :-) But the G3, while a significant
upgrade from the 7200, is far from state-of-the-art. A friend of mine
from these lists recently bought a brand new G4 iBook which IS
state-of-the-art, and I think he said it cost over two grand.
Fortunately, I can live with less than state-of-the-art, and I don't need
all the fancy features the "better" Macs offer which my Macs (the G3 and
a PB 190, which BTW came from Ebay for $25, so I found out) lack.
My conclusion: Unless you ARE rich (or at least earning higher than the
median income, and my income at best only barely approached the median;
it's usually below), buying a brand new state-of-the-art Macintosh
computer IS just way too f���ing expensive.
~Yersinia.
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