Edit: Jesus Christ, people. If you buy a $150 Thinkpad made by slave labor instead of a $1,200 MacBook made by slave labor, you're still supporting a capitalist economy based on slave labor. We all do. We have no choice. The number of smug liberals in the comments saying "well I buy a cheap used laptop" or "well I buy coffee beans and make my own coffee" are completely missing the fucking point.
Don't tell yourself your consumption is moral. All of us make unethical choices every day because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Accept your shame and guilt and let it drive you to do better.
Here I am being more judgey about Starbucks.
I'm no Apple fan but I'm no hater either. They're overpriced but most people who have them are buying them for the style/aesthetic/image...and while that may indeed be shallow, if that's what they want and the apple stuff delivers it for them and makes them happy, I suppose it's money well spent (to them).
The coffee on the other hand, if they're in any city or suburb of any decent size, there's probably a small local option that's at the very least as good as Starbucks coffee and likely significantly better.
Exactly, one of the main complaints about macs (being so proprietary and locked down is one of the main selling points. They're the king of "just works" because they don't allow a damn thing that might make it not.
I like to tinker so obv that's garbo, but if you want to get your grandma something and not have to come around once a month to "fix," Mac might be the answer. ๐คท
In my experience locked down hardware just works until it doesn't just work, and at that point it's much harder to get working. When my auntie wants to know how to make sure she doesn't delete her iphone contacts by accident, I need to have the device in my hands and figure out the answer. If she had an android like a normal person, then I could just tell her because I know the answer off the top of my head.
I tried to play Warframe with a friend whose only gaming device is a Switch last year, and it was a massive pain. We eventually got it working, but my friend came close to giving up many times. If she'd had a PC, it would have just worked.
Macs are not really locked down fyi. I can sudo to root and do literally anything I can do on Linux. iPhones sure, but not Macbooks.
Alright but if you're driving 6 hours across the USA you can get consistently good starbucks in every other town you pass by, but yes I'm sure there might better tasting gourmet options for similar price range in the most populous cities in the nation.
Apple is still a detriment to the end users, though, so I don't care if it gives them momentary happiness.