Uh-oh.... Anybody following WWDC?

[Bill Humphrey]

You left out the given for any computer platform that all your hardware 
has to be replaced every three years or so even though it still works 
perfectly because hardware advances are so great in such short cycles 
and tied with software advances that you have to (if you want to enjoy 
those advances).  There is a Luddite answer for all this but then a 
Luddite wouldn't even have a computer in the first place.


Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Judy Perry wrote:
>
>> Yeah, but what about the money we have invested in PPC-native apps?  
>> Do we
>> get those all free?
>
>
> Nope.  That's part of the Mac Tax we've all been paying for years.
>
> Artificial demand is how Apple keeps itself and its vendors in sales. 
> They can't do it just a 2.5% marketshare, and if you take iPods out of 
> the picture their revenue position rather bites.
>
> Apple can only stay afloat by selling the same product to the same 
> customers over and over.  We pay an annual OS X tax of $139, even 
> though the first two (arguably three) releases were of beta quality.  
> Sure, there are the occassional switchers.  But I doubt many of the 2 
> million Tiger sales went to them.
>
> For vendors, Apple was the only major vendor who transitioned to USB 
> without continuing support for legacy ports.  This created an 
> artificial demand for new peripherals, and a lot of vendors who were 
> leaving decided to stay to cash in.  Apple needs vendors, vendors need 
> disproportionate sales to justify the disproportionate R&D.  It's good 
> for everyone -- except the consumer who gets the bill.
>
> So if we love the Mac platform enough to have endured these things for 
> so long, is a third set of arbitrary paid upgrades really that much 
> more expensive than the two we've already paid for?
>
> Like a friend keeps telling me, "It's an economic democracy:  one 
> dollar, one vote".  If we want to vote for Apple we pony up the cash.
>
> If not, there's always Linux.  It's already available for both x86 and 
> PPC. ;)
>
>
>> I dunno...  I kinda like my dual G4 desktop
>
>
> I still love my Power Computing box.  It still does what I bought it 
> for, but that hasn't stopped me from buying newer computers in recent 
> years.
>
> I suspect you'll get far more than two years' life out of your G4. 
> Just as with PPC, a switch to Intel doesn't mean your current Mac will 
> suddenly stop working.
>
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin
>  Fourth World Media Corporation
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