Every once in a while Apple introduces something, claims that its new product is a million percent faster than anything else, the Macsters have orgasms, and everyone else laughs.
Well, Dell didn’t laugh this time around. They filed a complaint with the department of the Better Business Bureau responsible for misleading advertising (the National Advertising Division),and they ruled against Apple.
Macsters reacted like Macsters always do, like this (see the first letter in the article).
Pathetic, isn’t it?
What’s even more pathetic is that someday (and it might be soon if IBM can get high speed 90nm G5s out faster than AMD can get 90nm Hammers out) the story will become true, and nobody will believe it, a real-life “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story.
What Is It With These People?
A little while back, someone submitted an article to Joe describing the replacement of the guts of a G5 system with an Athlon system.
Joe kind of scratched his head about that being the smartest idea in the world, but he edited and put it up, not thinking it was anything earthshattering.
Well, that article got about seven times more page impressions than the second most popular article we’ve ever written, and most of them came from Macsters. For days, this was effectively a Mac site, most of our viewers used a Mac OS.
The difference between PC users and Macsters was typlified by the reactions I saw in various forums.
The typical PC user reaction was, “That idiot! He gave away the G5 parts rather than sell them on eBay?” To them, it was an act of financial foolishness, a sin of wasting his parents’ money.
One of the two typical Mac user reaction was, “He . . . he . . . defiled our machine!” To them, it was an act of desecration and sacrilege, a sin of blasphemy.
The other was “What do you expect? Pearls before swine.”
Why the difference?
Apple runs a very interesting business. They really don’t sell hardware. Rather, they sell a vision. The vision is that of Apple being an elite computer company building elite computers for elite people. They sell status to Mac users.
When that’s the vision, you can’t let reality get in the way.
So when you or anybody else points out that this is more a Wizard of Oz operation than a elite computing strike force, that Macs are little different than PCs, facts and truths don’t matter. Understand that you aren’t attacking Apple or Macs in the mind of the Macster. You’re attacking the vision, which means that you’re attacking that person’s status, his or her self-esteem. It’s a personal attack, and that’s why they respond the way they do.
That’s why getting Mac users who have bought into the vision to acknowledge reality is about as tough as curing pedophiles.
MacTactics In The PC World
None of this is new to Macdom. What is new in the PC world is that others are trying to sell the same Macvision, accompanied by the same Macprices. The pitch is “We can make you special, important.”
Not going to name names, that’s not important. It’s the approach that matters.
No material good in the world thing makes you elite. No material good in the world makes you important. At most, what are called status symbols are just by-products of being elite or important, and if you can buy it for tens or hundreds or a few thousand dollars, it’s not much of a status symbol. If just about anybody could buy it if they really wanted to, how does that make you special?
You can’t buy greatness. You can only earn it.
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