@Eli:
Since your argument neglects to mention anything about Microsoft or Windows, are we to assume you did the truly thrifty thing, and invested the time necessary to learn some flavor of Linux, or another 100% free operating system?

No. Don't assume that. Don't assume that's 'truly thrifty' either, since my time isn't (quite) valueless.

I am the ultimate end user. I only use the simplest software that ever existed. I think some of the Mac-for-fashion guys have similar needs, but spend an astonishing multiple of what I spend for the same product. I should have spoken more precisely. For people with these simple needs, to opt for a Mac is to go way, way out of your way to signal your membership in a particular group. It's an elite group. It's a rich group. I'm sensitive to that, because I can no longer afford to belong to it the way I used to. I now see the Mac marketing for what it is: brilliant. It makes people believe it's the computer of the hungrier classes, the computer of the scrappy creative underclass. And it's really the opposite. And that's what impresses me. That's my only point.

Buying the computer from company A doesn’t, as a matter of fact, say anything about you, just like buying a computer from company B doesn’t say anything about your counterparts.

As a born-again penny-pincher very close to bankruptcy, I didn't have to put a lot of thought into choosing my new laptop when the sales hit last December. It was a PC via Dell, $400 delivered. That was 40% of the price of the cheapest Mac I could find.

I live in the annoying neighborhood called Williamsburg, in Brooklyn. Poverty is in fashion here, which might be lucky for me. There are a lot of artists, or at least unemployed people, occupying cafes in torn clothing all day, with mussed hair. From one side of their laptops they appear to be all writing novels. There is usually a different story on the opposite side. But what you notice is that the computer among the hipster set universally is the Mac. The Mac is the People's Hardware, true computer of the hungry struggling artist types.

And the PC: an emblem of the ruling class.

I'm familiar with the bias. I used to espouse it myself, back before dollars actually meant something to me. What I've learned since is that the Mac marketing juggernaut has exactly inverted the class reality of the two kinds of machine. You buy Macs, above all other reasons, because you have money to blow. People who are struggling just to service their debt every month can't afford to care about aesthetics, operating systems, susceptibility to viruses. I can't afford to treat viruses in my own bloodstream. What I need is a Web browser and Office-style software, both available at no charge for PCs (I run OpenOffice). And that's the whole list.

People who buy hardware from Company A primarily due to the supposition that it's the funkier, artier, more proletarian option really are saying something about themselves. It's just that it's the opposite of what they have in mind.