http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html
I hate Macs
Charlie Brooker Monday February 5, 2007 The Guardian
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
[WS:] He may have a point, but that is hardly a valid criticism. Many products, from clothing to vacuum cleaners to automobiles use similar marketing strategies of selling you a life experience - sexy appeal, clean house, or a personality extension - rather than just a product. Brace for more to come.
The reason why Mac is using this strategy is not about the quality of the product (which I think is pretty similar to a PC) but to its market position, which in turn is determined by path dependence. Path dependence in economics refers to a situation when an initial choice of the venue or format of the production process will make it likely that subsequent choices will resemble the initial one, thus forming a "path." The main mechanism creating this path dependence is transaction cost: they are much lower for those who follow the path than fro those who break away from it.
A classical example of path dependence is the QWERTY keyboard, which was initially designed for mechanical typewriters with the intention of *slowing* down the typist to reduce jams. With the advent of electric typewriters and computers, QWERTY became obsolete, if not hindrance, but changing it would require considerable transaction costs - i.e. re-learning how to type which would impose enormous cost on businesses. Therefore, we are stuck with QWERTY, and even M$ cartel did not success in replacing it with its "ergonomic" design.
Computers are especially path dependent, because their very functioning is determined by line-specific formats of their codes. Although Mac was an early innovator - or rather adopter of the windows system (initially developed by Zenith, if memory serves), it lost to M$ because it created too high entry barriers too early in the game for its line of product in the formative stage of the industry. Stated differently, it fell prey to its own efforts to protect the ownership of its line by copy-protection and high pricing in the stage when markets shares were largely up for grabs. At the same time, M$-DOS was available virtually for free, and many of DOS application could be easily bootlegged, because of weak or non-existent copy protection.
As a result, M$-DOS and its application spread out faster than Mac, thus creating path dependency. Breaking that path dependency by non-M$ system can be very costly indeed. One way of lowering this cost is lowering the price of its machines and OS - but that is rather difficult due to generally low profit margins for computer hardware. So Mac marketers went in the other direction - by increasing the *perceived* benefits of its machines. *Perceived* here is the key word, because the actual difference is not that great, and does not matter for most users anyway. Therefore, they created the whole hoopla about Mac "image" - if I remember correctly they even hired a Pepsi exec to facilitate that goal.
By turning a computer into a fashion product they hoped to increase the perceived value of their product by tricking the buyers to buy a whole "way of life" rather than just a gadget. By so doing they hope that the buyers would be willing to cough up for Macs than they would for PCs. I am not sure how successful they have been. They have not lost any o their (small) market share, but that can be explained by their own path dependency. In path dependence models there is usually an equilibrium in which one party dominates most (say three quarters) but not all of the market - so the Mac's market position could be a result of such equilibrium rather than its campaign to fetishize its product.
So the bottom line is that due to its inferior market share, Mac marketers do not have many options to compete against the dominant M$. Turning their computer into a fetish and a cultural icon seems like a rational way to go, especially that it has worked with many other types of products. Besides, no one ever lost money by pandering to human vanity and a desire to be hip and popular.
Wojtek