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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> the cold hard facts of living in the western world is that most people would need to spend irresponsibly to use MacOS regularly.

A $900 MacBook Air would probably have lasted far longer and needed less time troubleshooting than a $500 computer made with subpar components. The amortized costs are far lower with Apple products (or other products using higher quality components) compared to buying the cheapest devices made with the lowest quality components, so there is no point in comparing the two.

And most people only need 1 computer, if that. I would actually bet most people can do everything they need to with iOS and an iPad would suffice. And other than the smaller screen size, I can see people make do with an iPhone even, especially if all you are doing is consuming.

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> A $900 MacBook Air would probably have lasted far longer and needed less time troubleshooting than a $500 computer made with subpar components.

I've never seen a more-true statement on this site. Years ago, my wife was using a $500 Acer laptop, which was a cheap plastic POS, which broke after a couple of years. I bit the bullet, and bought a pre-owned Air for $900. She is still using it, 11 years later. I used to have to fix something on her Windows computer every other week. Now I hardly ever have to help her with anything.

A year later, I bought another $900, used Air for my daughter. She is still using that, 10 years later. I bought a new MBP, and gave my son my 7-year-old version. I expect him to get many more years out of it.

People who have never owned a MacBook expect that they "wear out" like a $500 laptop, but they just don't. They cost much less over the long run. It's like hiking boots. You can buy cheap ones every year, or bite the bullet, and pay 3 times more, and have a pair that lasts for 10 years.

That 11 year old Air can't run a recent OS that supports modern web browsers including security patches.

For most users who are emailing, reading some web forum, social media, and maybe office that matters very little.

Even fully up to date there is always another zero day, so for individuals doing nothing of particular importance the best bet is good up to date backups of the important files and when your software tools are working well to help you get whatever it is you do done, don’t change them, and don’t update them, because odds are there will be some regression, some feature removed, a change to a subscription model, some functionality now depends on the Internet, or some level of telemetry/spying.

Software has become hostile to users. Everything is nearly malware now. Easily snap shotted and sandboxed VMs are just about the only way to maintain some level of consistency over a 5-10 year span where you are depending on the software to just keep doing what it is doing.

But, not surprisingly, "For most users who are emailing, reading some web forum, social media, and maybe office that matters very little." don't understand or know how to do rolling backups or operate a VM, so keeping their OS up to date is the best option. Denying them that, regardless of how little they use the internet, is reckless at best.

Assuming it's 11 years old (late 2010 model), it can run up to High Sierra, which both the most recent Chrome and Firefox will support.

If it's the Mid-2009 model (the next older model), it can still run El Capitan and therefore the newest Chrome.

To be fair, every single Acer device I've ever had contact with other than my display was conspicuously unreliable, and their support/service has not been that great, either.

I have good experience with Asus laptops, though, I still have an EeePC from 2008, and it's still working fine. Slow as a snail, of course, but still working. ThinkPads, too, although they can be a bit pricey.

There's the software side, of course, macOS is much more pleasant to use than Windows. But I found after using a Mac Mini for about three years that I actually prefer GNU/Linux on my desktop.

Perhaps it would have but the Boots theory of wealth from Terry Pratchett still applies.

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