>Yes, being a follower can have a quite an impact on your life. So can being a leader.

That wasn't about being a follower or a leader. If anything it's totally orthogonal. To make an analogy, it's more like "dress for the job you want to get" than about following any particular fashion.

(Besides, following the 80% of the US laptop buyers who don't have a Mac laptop wouldn't make you a leader in any meaningful way).

>I can pay for something pricier (and I do), but I never bring my Macbook Pro to meetings because it just sucks in comparison. I always bring my Surface Pro because it's a way better machine in every way. It kills the MBP in ergonoics (has a touch screen, multi-touch, mag-safe, illumited keyboard, etc), it's nice and sturdy (and I throw it around), light, thin and awesome battery life.

Well, e.g. the 2.7 i5, 256 SSD, 8GB 13" MBPr is $1,499 and the same-ish Surface Pro 4 (256 SSD, i5, 8GB) is $1,299.

So $200 of a difference -- it's also about half the weight -- but with a 1 inch smaller monitor, worse speakers, and no keyboard. You have to fork out another $129 for the Type Cover (keyboard), which has a crappy trackpad and subpar typing feel.

All in all, if we trade e.g. sturdiness for lighter weight, and call those two products equal, the price difference is $50 -- which basically reinforces my point: if you match 1-1 features from some competitive product, the end price is not that different anymore, if at all.

>That's not a reason people are buying Macbook Pros. More people were buying MBPs before that, when the highest resolution was a paltry 1440x900 (which really sucked compared to most PC screens at 1920x1080).

No, but it's the reason lots of people buy Apple. They tend to be either the first to bring something to market altogether, or to be the first to bring something to market in a decent (as opposed to early-adopter-half-thought-crap) implementation.

>None of the technical details or build qualities that you mentioned matters one bit. Most people buying Apple products are doing so because of Apple's brilliant marketing and the social status that now comes along with owning an Apple product.

That's just self-grandeur pissing on millions of people as idiots while you alone are smart enough to see through the illusion.

Including pissing on tons of people who are very bright (top programmers, scientists, etc.), most of whom could not care less about marketing (and for example have been vocal against several practices or products from Apple, despite themselves using a Mac laptop because they think that it's the best for their needs).

Here's what Linus Torvalds had to say: "I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light."

(And to dispel any BS notions of him falling for the marketing, he goes on to say: "Btw, even when it comes to Apple, it’s really just the Air that I think is special. The other apple laptops may be good-looking, but they are still the same old clunky hardware, just in a pretty dress.").

Of course different people have other priorities, I prefer the more bulky MBPr because I do video editing work and appreciate the discreet card. Plus I like the large screen.

In fact the whole "marketing" conspiracy theory ignores (a) competitors historically spent just as much or more for their marketing, (b) Apple got big from being a nearly bankrupt company who nobody cared about and who had a tiny advertising budget, just by putting out products people liked.

Not only didn't people buy Apple stuff as "sheep" because "everyone else did", but the inverse, they bought them despite Apple having a tiny fraction of the market, and their share growing organically from there.