Comment by gspencley
2 years ago
Out of curiosity what part of the world do you live in?
I currently work remotely for a company that is head-quartered in California. The company issues MacBooks unless you ask for a Windows laptop. Most of my co-workers in California grew up using Macs and love them. Whereas it seems that, for some reason, the majority of the non-Californian employees grew up using Windows.
My current manager came from Microsoft and was the one that pointed this out to me (because, like you, I also have always hated MacOS ... before our company started issuing Windows laptops to those who request them I tried really hard to get used to it and just couldn't). My manager's claim, though I'm not sure how accurate it is, is that Apple seems to have a cultural hold within California, with lots of businesses using them as well as consumers ... but outside of the state Microsoft has the hold. Again, it's a hypothesis, I don't know if there's any validity to it ... but I'm curious if there could be some truth to it.
I think that hypothesis is correct, and has spread to tech startups in general (primarily web-based tech startups). I have never lived in California but have many other places around the country, and with many different companies, and that is definitely in-line with what I've seen as well.
The other factor (related somewhat but not completely) I think is that Apple has become a status symbol. People who chose Windows were rare, and got lots of shit for picking Windows. The peer pressure made the majority of people either stick with macOS even if they didn't like it, or switch at the refresh cycle (and make sure to announce that was their intention anytime they got shit for having a windows laptop). Usually I was the only one on Linux, and there'd be one other person on Windows who didn't care about the pressue, but 99% of everybody would go with the flow.
I'm one of the macOS folk. I don't think it's status symbol as much as low hassle. For the most part the thing just works, is fast, doesn't crash, doesn't have issues working with certain hardware and software. If you want an OS you don't have to think about I think it's ahead.
Not sure if it is specifically California because it does seems majority of US Tech sector, especially those doing Web Development uses MacOS.
But your comment does echo the some point many have repeatedly posted on HN, in Europe most of their colleagues are on Windows. ( Although some people mention UK having higher Mac concentration ) And Mac is an absolute minority, even within the tech sector.
But I have been saying for some time, at the current rate things are going I would not be surprised if Microsoft start to open source a portion of Windows. And the pendulum may swing to their favour once they have captured more of the Cloud and Enterprise revenue.
They haven't even open sourced abandoned EdgeHTML
IIRC Apple was donating lots of Apple IIs to schools in California in the 80s and then still maintained a disproportionately (compared to other states) high market share in the educational market in the 90s and 2000s. This presumably had a multi-generational effect as people graduating from those schools were more likely to buy Macs and then children growing up in those households were more used to them than Windows PCs etc.