Ripped Off By A Mac? Why Apple Users May Pay More For Booking Hotels With Orbitz

[EOTE]

39. I mentioned that was how I generally felt. So it should be clear that's a generalization.

And it's fairly clear why I feel that way. Why people would pay upwards of twice as much for the exact same hardware and in exchange lose the ability to do anything in terms of a decent upgrade is well beyond me. As for why a techie would be interested in purchasing something like that is even more bizarre. Why would a techie be interested in something that's so locked down in terms of an upgrade path? That's like a mechanic buying a car where you couldn't even replace one's tires, yet alone suspension and engine upgrades. I've built my own PCs since my teens, all the techies I know (my coworkers and friends) do the same. None of them have any desire to spend more than twice as much on hardware that hardly has any upgrade path and whose upgrades also tend to cost more than twice as much as their PC counterparts.

I purchased a GTX 285 (GPU) for my computer in early 2009, I believe for around $300. More than two years later (a lifetime in terms of GPUs), I saw a GTX 285 for Macs used on eBay for $450. Meanwhile, used 285s for PC were going for about $120. It's the same damned hardware, just with a BIOS that's been flashed to work on Macs. Manufacturers obviously know that Mac users are suckers at least to the extent that they'll pay ridiculous sums for the exact same hardware. Being a PC user (especially one that makes their own) means never getting fucked over like that.