[lbo-talk] MacVeblen

[Michael McIntyre]

Preferring PC to Mac on the basis of price, especially when software is
free, is certainly reasonable.  But everything else here is wrong.  The Mac
GUI was not exactly "ripped off" from Xerox (not Zenith). Microsoft, in
contrast, based DOS on a hacked version of CP/M.  The competing business
models of (1) Microsoft and (2) Apple were (1) to allow anyone to
manufacture computers that could run DOS, but to require a licensing fee
from all, and (2) to refuse to license the software to third-party
manufacturers.  Microsoft's business model succeeded while Mac's business
model failed, or nearly so.  The "cult of Apple" arose initially among
pre-Mac Apple users and was later adapted as a marketing strategy, not a
business model, after Jobs was brought back.  Apple's new business model is
a hybrid of the old  Microsoft and Apple strategies.  Apple still
manufactures all of its own hardware, but with iPod and iPhone its aim is to
overwhelm the competition with content (either the size of the iTunes store
or the vast range of iPhone apps) and ease of use.  Wojtek's rejection of
the fanboy culture is really just a very effective means of building
cultural capital in a would-be proley group like ours.

Michael


> [WS:]  I paid less than $400 for each of my PC notebooks - both new.
>  Furthermore, I can get software that I need 9Excel, SPSS, SAS etc.) for
> free (i.e. through the university.)  That is far less than $1k+ for a Mac.
>
> I have nothing against Mac machines, they are good quality and
> aesthetically pleasing.  It is the Mac business model that irks me.
>
> Back in the early days of personal computers, Mac ripped off the GUI based
> software from Zenith (if memory serves) and put it on its proprietary system
> with a high price tag.  The PC by contrast, while still proprietary, allowed
> after market developers and easy pirating of its software at a much lower
> price (not exactly an open source, but much closer to it than the Mac
> business model ever was.)  It is not surprising that Mac quickly priced
> itself out of the market, and they would share the fate of many hi-tech
> shipwrecks (remember Wang?)  if they did not resort to a marketing strategy
> borrowed from the fast food industry (Pepsi Cola, whose marketing exec they
> hired for the job, if memory serves.)  That marketing strategy hinges on
> generating "astro-turf" cult of being "hip and cool" by the virtue of using
> certain commodity - which is nothing more than commodity fetishism  - which
> created a small market niche for them.
>
> In sum - their business model is monopoly (with a hefty price tag) cum
> commodity fetishism - arguably two most obnoxious aspects of capitalism.
>  What is there to like?
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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