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Comment by bloqs | Hacker News Reader

4% of my disk on a computer with soldered storage hardware?

Is the marketing really getting this good?

This is going to shock you I suspect, it seems to be something many here fail to consider in any number of circumstances: You don't represent a majority of anything. A majority of people buying Macs, a majority of people they market to, a majority of who they design for, a majority of who they product test against. In fact I'd venture to guess that you like many here represent a vocal portion of a tiny minority that are almost impossible to please without the sort of full customization of hardware and software you want. It's much easier to neglect that small market in favor of the one that prints them money, and I'm always baffled that so many don't understand that.

People here misunderstand just how different they are to the norm. "I want x, y, z to be free so I can modify it!" Most people buying Apple products don't, hell most people buying any phone doesn't want that, they want a smartphone that works out of the box and never fails to be a smartphone. The walled garden is largely a feature and not a bug, it's just not a feature you want, just like the aesthetics, social factors, ease of use, etc don't matter to you as much as function.

Most people aren't like that.

> a majority of people they market to, a majority of who they design for, a majority of who they product test against

As if Apple is always right and knows what their users want. Sure they are more often than other companies but stuff like the touchbar and Siri itself for that matter prove that they do in fact make mistakes.

They’re certainly closer to what their users want than people here are. You can argue minutiae, but the numbers speak for themselves. That’s not the same as being perfect, as should be obvious; this is a comparison to all of you, not perfection.

They don’t need to make good products to be highly successful, they only need to make products which are slightly better than the competition.

As always if you think you can beat them at their own game, give it a shot. Many have tried and somehow despite everyone from Google to MS, to idealistic hackers giving it a shot Apple remains the begrudging leader because they’re better than the rest at just working.

It’s easy to compare things to an ideal in your head, “Reality has a surprising amount of detail” that gets in the way though.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. HN and Reddit are the kings of delusion in thinking they’re remotely close to even 1% of the market Apple and others are concerned about. And rightly freaking so, they represent an rounding error in revenue and generally are never happy with anything, at least anything short of a product that would be, in turn, undesirable for the other 99% of the market.

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