There are fewer Linux users than Mac users, and fewer Mac users than Windows users. Thus, the mean sale price for Linux users is more strongly affected by any single big sale than the mean sale price for Mac or Windows users.
Also any random Linux user is more likely to be a developer, which likely motivates them more to support the indie devs. And since Macs are 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts, owning one tends to imply you have money to throw around.
Macs aren't 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts. Not even 1.5x as expensive. If you spec out a system with the same components and build quality from any of the PC builders you'll end up with roughly the same price. People just ignore things like screen quality and memory speed when pricing stuff out and then compare consumer PCs to workstation macs.
Feel free to post a Mac that is 2-3x its equal though you'll be the first person in any of the times I've posted this reply that will be able to do it.
Well, finding 2 computers that are exactly equal in specs is more effort than I care to put in, but here's the first reasonable comparison I see at Best Buy:
Compare it to the 13" Macbook Pro (for the sake of being generous towards the Mac). It's just over half the price, has a bigger screen, more ram, a larger hard drive, and seemingly identical processor and graphics. Naturally there are give and takes on both sides (just about everything is inferior to Apple in terms of "build quality", though this is tough to put a price on), but I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is a comparable laptop, and the specs easily make up for it being $50 over half price.
I don't say this to disparage Apple, I've got a MBP myself, but whenever I look at PCs with comparable specs, I do find that they tend to be about half the price.
I'll withdraw 3x though, that probably is too high and even if I could hunt around and find one example, it's not like that would prove the point.
Worse quality screen, graphics card, audio, and slower cpu. Worse keyboard(no backlighting), worse trackpad(my missus has one they are pretty awful), thicker case.
Nothing is stand out worse but everything is just a bit worse which when your pushing the upper edges adds up to a lot of cost. Not even counting build quality.
By this logic, is anything but a Macbook comparable to a Macbook? How would you compare build quality objectively? I think it's safe to say if you're paying extra for a backlit keyboard, you're throwing around money.
Yes but they cost just as much. As you'll note I said ignoring build quality even though it should be factored in.
If you've ever had a backlit keyboard you will realize the usefulness of them. I consider them as essential as a good screen but again I just pointed out that its a worse keyboard not that the keyboard is make or break.
I guess I tried to address two issues in this. Let's put it this way: one man drives an Audi RS4, and the other has a Toyota Camry. Nobody argues that the man with the Audi has the better car, but one might infer that he also has more disposable income. That is why we assume people with Macbooks have more disposable income; they've purchased a luxury item when there is a commodity alternative. A backlit keyboard is definitely not required to use a laptop, no more than heated seats are necessary in a car. You think they're essential because you have enough disposable income that the utility of the money you'd use to buy the keyboard has become less than the utility of the keyboard. This is the notion of value. You can also, likely, afford to give a few dollars to a charity if you'd like.
Thats a fair comment but is a different discussion than the one this subthread is built on which is whether a mac is more expensive than a comparable pc. When discussing that then features like a backlit keyboard are important.
Consumer Macs are price competitive on the day of their release but their price doesn't drop over time the way PCs do. Since Macs are refreshed approximately annually, this can mean a significant differential just before a refresh.
On release day, macs are only price-competitive if (1) quality is more important than price and (2) Apple has a product targeting your needs.
When buying a computer, you don't look at specs you look at needs.
"I need a laptop to run the Internet and Microsoft Word". PC: $400. Mac: $1000 or higher if an 11" screen is acceptable. It doesn't matter that the $400 laptop has a crappy screen -- to many people a crappy 15" screen is better than a great 11".
"super fast dev box": PC: $800, Mac: $2500 (and the PC is considerably faster)
I'll give you the laptop to browse the web and run word. But thats a low end task and thats not Apples target market with their laptops(hence the pro in the name).
It's also about 90% of the market. Macs have a significant share of this market -- sold to those who care more about design, stability and/or status more than price.
$800 should get you an i5 2500K, a solid motherboard, 16 gigs of RAM, a small SSD, a nice case & PS. No ECC, but it's considerably faster than a Mac Pro.
For the 1500 machine, add a killer graphics card, a secondary HDD and a Windows license. You'll even have some money left over to sub in one of those silly "gamer" cases.
That's BYO. Prebuilt stuff is generally about the same price, but comes with lower quality cases, power supplies & motherboards.
The fact that people buy a high performance item for a low performance task does not make the item over priced it means they are over paying for what they need. There is a big difference.
Again, posting what you should be able to get is all fine but if you're comparing to a mac pro then until you post me a parts list for a workstation with the same quality of parts put together already then you're not really making your point.
You're not going to do that though because its time consuming and difficult to match up. Also you're ignoring the cost involved in the effort of finding/getting and assembling those parts. To be a fair comparison you'd have to go off one of the PC manufactures lists or at least add overhead for the labor.
But my point is that matching specs is the wrong thing to do. I want a machine that will compile a large code base really quickly. I can do that for $800, and it will do it faster than any machine that Apple sells for less than $4800. (12 core mac pro with SSD). The $2500 Mac Pro is better than my $800 machine at many things, but my $800 machine is superior for my needs, and that's all that matters.
Then you're arguing against something I didn't claim. I never claimed Macs were the same price as the best PCs for specific tasks. I said that a comparable PC will cost a similar price to a mac. Just because your $800 PC does what you need better does not make it a better machine. It just makes it a better machine for you.
I'm not saying that your claim is wrong, I'm just saying that your claim is meaningless. What's inside the machine doesn't matter at all, the suitability of the machine for the tasks performed on it is what matters.
I'd be curious to see the median sale prices.