Subject | Re: mac sales down |
From | Mitch |
Date | 05/19/2008 08:09 (05/18/2008 20:09) |
Message-ID | <180520082009360531%mitch@hawaii.rr> |
Client | |
Newsgroups | comp.sys.mac.advocacy |
Follows | Mayor Of R'lyeh |
"The real world"? All of it is about the 'real world' Mayor. To suggest that a comparison of merits, or design, or interface, or of technical issues isn't 'real world' is ignorant and foolish. SALES have zero relevance regarding the merits or quality of the actual products. They don't. THEY CANNOT. To say that sales indicate that requires all buyers to be making informed, technically knowledgable decisions at all times!ZnUMayor Of R'lyeh
That's fine. I'm not saying the government make them buy something else. I'm just saying that "Consumers buy X, therefore X is by definition better" is not a valid argument in an advocacy group, because consumers are influenced by many criteria that, if directly presented as arguments for buying one computer over another in this newsgroup, would literally be laughed at, because they have no relevance to a *substantive* discussion of the merits of various products.
Only if you consider the real world to not be substantive.
Consumers have their own agenda. That it doesn't always mesh with more technical people's doesn't make the consumer's criteria 'wrong'.Correct -- but consumer issues do NOT determine when something is actually better. Just because consumers include other factors doesn't mean they are ever useful or meaningful to comparisons.
Actually the reverse is true. For products whose success depends on consumers buying them the consumer's criteria is all important.Sure, PROVIDED that the consumer actually knows the difference, and gets choices on most aspects. Can you say that most consumers actually know the difference between HFS+ and NTFS? Can compare them on a technical basis? Since they clearly do not, which one is more common doesn't mean anything.