Why Is It So Hard to Accept That Good Things Cost Money?

This is a simple thought I have been turning over in my head since Apple announced the new Power Mac G5.

Sometimes I look around, literally out on the street, and small details tell me more than any market report. When I ride the subway, I do not see people dressed head to toe in Armani or Versace. But I do see good clothes. You can spot Hugo Boss here and there.

And I think: computers are not that different. Using a Mac is like wearing Hugo Boss. Using an SGI workstation is like wearing Versace.

Now take that same idea and move it to motorcycles. Barcelona is full of them. You see Honda Scoopy scooters everywhere because they are affordable, practical, and great for getting around the city.

But if you wanted to ride from Barcelona to Madrid, would you do it on a Scoopy? I would not. For that kind of trip, you need a different machine. Something built for more than short city rides. Computers work the same way. Before buying one, you should ask yourself what you actually need it for. Anyone can buy almost any kind of computer, even an SGI workstation. They are not as impossibly expensive as people imagine. But my point is simpler: if you are going to buy a computer, you should seriously consider buying a Macintosh instead of a PC.

First, ask yourself what you do every day. Then ask yourself what you may want to do in the future. The first question is easy. In my case, I use the internet for almost everything: chat, email, web browsing, FTP, music. I play games in my spare time. I listen to music while I work. I write hundreds of lines in my word processor. I program in three languages. I manage a web server. I do graphic design. I test new technologies. That is what I do now.

The future is harder to predict, but I can guess a few things. Maybe I will make a short digital video film if someone lends me a camera. I have enough friends who could. Maybe next month I will buy a digital camera and start building a serious photo library. I also want to experiment with wireless networks. I want to burn DVDs. I want to edit video. And even with my current computer, which is already two years old, I can still do most of that. I got to this point because I knew my own habits, and I knew what the market offered before I bought my first Mac. When I bought the Cube, it was brand new and expensive. I spent about $1,000 more than I would have spent on a PC clone. I could have bought the latest clone PC instead: 512 MB of RAM, 200 MHz more than the Mac, a 16 MB graphics card, and a 20 GB hard drive made in Taiwan. I would have saved around $1,000. But I was not thinking only about the day I bought it.

I was thinking about the next few years. I had used both PCs and Macs for a long time, and I knew this from experience: PCs have a way of constantly asking you for more money. Today I could still be using my miserable PC made from parts bought here and there. I could probably keep it alive. But the moment I wanted to capture digital video, edit properly, or connect new devices, I would have to start spending money again.

I would need a better hard drive. I would need better memory. If I wanted a motherboard that did not burn out after a year, I would need to buy something decent. If I wanted everything to work well together, I would have to keep replacing parts. And that list never ends. It is the motorcycle example all over again. If all I need is to move around the city, a scooter is fine. If I want to leave the city and actually enjoy the ride, maybe I need a Harley-Davidson. If you stop and think about it for a second, you realize that the hundreds of thousands of Mac users around the world are not all graphic designers. I still do not understand why this is so hard for people to accept. Is it really that strange that some of us genuinely prefer a different platform? Maybe it is.

You do not usually become loyal to something overnight. I know some people do, but in general, real preference comes from actual use. I spend a lot of time with people in technology, and they use everything: Windows 2000, Mac OS 8, Linux Mandrake, SunOS. And yet I rarely hear a PC user say they are truly happy with their machine in the same way Mac users do. It is hard to find people who are genuinely satisfied with a PC. The few who are usually have a very specific profile. Most of them are close to the free software world. And I understand them.

For many Windows users, neither the hardware nor the platform gives them much room to imagine what they could really do with their computer. I have met people running Windows with a web server, a digital media setup, and a whole pile of tools on the same PC. But when I look at how much money they spent to get there, only to end up with worse performance than a Mac or an SGI, I cannot help thinking that clone PCs, and even branded PCs from IBM, Dell, or Compaq, do not make much sense.

The day I became a Mac user, I realized that my computer had fewer limits than I thought. I also realized that the Mac world was buried under a pile of myths created mostly by people who had never really used one. I mean people who never owned a Macintosh, never lived with one, never made it part of their daily work. That is usually where bad opinions come from. Someone tries a Mac for one day, gets frustrated, and decides the whole platform is terrible. If a friend of mine who has never owned a Mac gets one for a day, chances are he will not like it. Of course, the opposite can happen too. Maybe he falls in love with it and never wants to go back. But then comes the usual objection:

“Wait, he is not a designer.”

As if Macs were only for designers. As if non-designers were supposed to use Windows by default. Why this? Why that? But hold on. Can you program on a Mac? Can you browse the web on a Mac? Can you write a book on a Mac? Can you play current games on a Mac? Yes. Of course you can.

Once a rumor starts, it can create a fake reality very quickly. There is a saying I learned in a small town in Mendoza, Argentina. It refers to the way people exaggerate things after hearing something that was already exaggerated by someone else:

Small town, big drama.

There is a lot of truth in that. Online, each of us is just a grain of sand. But in this era, saying something can echo in ways we cannot predict. Maybe what I am writing now will affect the way thousands of readers think. Maybe it will not.

But one person says:

The new Power Mac G5 is bad and still too expensive.

Then someone else repeats:

The Power Mac G5 is useless. Same thing as always: all design, no substance, and way too expensive.

And that is how the story keeps getting worse. So let me explain why I do not think Macs are expensive. I have been trying to say this throughout the whole text: Macs can be better than clone PCs and branded PCs, both immediately and over time. Their prices are competitive when you understand what you are actually buying. You do not need to add more memory than necessary. You do not need to upgrade half the machine just to run the latest Office, the newest game of the year, or Windows XP. When you buy a Mac, you usually keep it for a long time. You do not replace it every year unless you absolutely need to stay on the cutting edge of speed and design.

I almost never think about reinstalling the operating system on my Mac. Once I understood how it worked, which took me about two weeks, I stopped worrying about it. I have not installed antivirus software on a Mac in years either. At this point, I barely even remember those strange 300 viruses people used to talk about for the Macintosh system. Every time I spend three or four days working on a Mac, it feels like centuries have passed since the days when I used a PC full time.

I almost forgot what an error screen looked like. A macro virus. A memory dump. The endless sound of the hard drive grinding away while the system swapped files and virtual memory. What a strange time that was. I still use PCs, though. And I still do not understand why people do not demand something better for themselves. If you are going to buy a PC, buy a good one. Install a proper operating system. Build something solid. But no.

The usual answer is:

Why bother? With a monitor, a hard drive, and onboard graphics, I can play a few games. Maybe not the newest ones, since most current games already require a computer less than a year old, but this clone PC is fine for now. If I need something later, I will buy it later.

That is exactly the trap. Buy cheap, buy twice. When all of that happens, I will be leaving Barcelona for wherever I want on my Harley-Davidson. I will ride it to work. I will ride it around the city. I will not be stuck on a little Scoopy that keeps me tied to the city limits.

When all of that happens, I will be using a Mac.

And I will do whatever I feel like doing: programming, editing video, burning a disc, recording music with a band I started with friends from the neighborhood. And I will not need to keep spending money for a long, long time upgrading a PC that nobody can guarantee will keep working properly. If the video card you bought at the Sant Antoni market breaks, and you saved $100 on it, good luck calling Taiwan for a replacement. Before spending €1,000 on a PC that may feel old in a year and a half, spend €2,000 on a Mac and use it for six or seven years. Do the things that a clone PC, or a preconfigured branded PC, will not let you do comfortably.

Or buy the Versace suit. Maybe now you see what I mean.