this is an unsourced data point, but I remember reading (on multiple ocasions) that OEM installs can cost something from 10 cents to a dollar. So even at the high end, you're maybe saving 10 to 15 dollars...

And is this actually realised as a savings to the consumer? I'd imagine it works more like selling advertising space. The bloatware is another source of revenue. Not a means to lower prices.

If they were really concerned about maximising consumer value, they wouldn't keep picking dumb prices that end in '9.99'.

Prices are mostly determined by the competition and not by the seller. Say Sony manufactures a laptop at $100 and Lenovo at $102.

If Lenovo has to be competition they have to somehow shove off that additional $2 required to make themselves on par with Sony.

So every penny counts.

My friends tell me they earn anywhere between $1-$25 depending on many factors. Ignore the techies. Normal people search on internet to find the cheapest laptop they want. People spend hours and days to save $15 on a laptop. They do not understand the difference between Computer with bloatware and Computer without bloatware.

I have met many people who talk about "Ask Menu" on internet explorer and come to think that it is a part of IE.

Are you implying that parent should be charging his or her parents for the work, or that he or she should cover the difference out of pocket?

I was implying that the money saved on the laptop is pretty small, so this 'benefit' to laptop owners is pretty insignificant and totally outweighed by the extra hassle or loss in performance / reliability of the computer.

And I'd recommend to anyone doing tech support for parents that they carefully guide them into purchasing a decent, maintainable machine. It's not up to me to tell OP how that gets paid for. (I've ended up buying my dad a computer to avoid him picking up a 'bargain' machine from the supermarket, just because it'd be me that ends up fixing/reinstalling that crap and recovering data...)

Your observation is true for techies but not the general population. Understand that if there was no benefit to putting bloatware no company would have spent their resources on it. For me the benefit of saving $20 is small but not for many people out there. I know many people who think Macbooks are just white colored laptops.

If I were him then I think I'd be suggesting that people tend to ignore externalities when praising markets.

Certainly he or his parents should value his time at something other than zero, and maybe be willing to pay a little more for a computer that is identical but demands fewer hours of AIDS removal.