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We ended up with no choices when we shopped for a PC.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
T h e R o a d L e s s T r a v e l e d
The two worlds of OS X users, and how that reality colors everything a Mac owner encounters
July 13, 2005
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard
Macintosh users live in two worlds. I can't wait for the day when things get back to normal.
The first world is the everyday culture of the Macintosh. That's the normal world. You need to do something on your computer and you just do it. You get it done.
The second world was imposed on Mac users by an onrush of Windows problems -- viruses, spyware, hijackware, worms and, worst of all, zombies.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming Windows users for viruses and all the rest. The problem is a failure of the American business model. It's not supposed to reward monopolies the way it did in Microsoft's case. But that's what happened. We ended up with no choices when we shopped for a PC.
Stores that could have sold Apple's Macintosh computers didn't. Stores that might have offered Linux PCs didn't. When you walked into a computer store, you could be forgiven for assuming that "computer" meant, well, "computer." But it meant, in store after store, city after city, "Windows PC."
Some folks knew better. They were savvy enough to seek out the Apple store the next state over. Or they knew how to download a free copy of Linux and install it in place of Windows on their PCs.
But most people who visited a computer store looking for that first PC for dad and mom or for Johnny and Mary walked out with a Windows computer without the slightest recognition that they could have avoided Windows altogether.
And that's the problem. Not Windows, not Windows users, not Johnny and Mary's mom and dad, but the pervasiveness of a single operating system for most of the world's computers. Microsoft had almost no competition. A class in Business Methods 101 would tell us that "almost no competition" means "no competition" in nearly every case. And that's what guarantees a bad job. We get the worst, not the best.
So it was with PCs for years. There's competition now, without question. But habits die hard. A lot of people who use Windows still don't know there is a choice.
What seems especially vexing to OS X users is the way Windows problems have painted us all the same shade of blue. People who use Windows assume that everybody gets viruses and everybody gets spyware.
"What antispyware program do you use?" a friend of mine asked me one day. "OS X," I said. There was a long pause. "Never heard of that one."
I felt bad. I felt as if I'd been a wise guy. So I explained what I meant. My comments didn't convince my friend to buy a Mac, but it opened the door a little. It started him thinking.
A few days later he asked me about spyware. "Get any on that X computer?"
"No."
"None at all?"
"Nope."
"Oh."
Maybe the "oh" meant more than I thought. A few days ago we had a chat about computer junk -- spam and scams and zombie attacks, in which Windows PCs are taken over during the night to spread spyware and viruses. Zombies are spreading at the rate of thousands a day.
"That's all Windows stuff, isn't it," he said. I just gave a nod and changed the subject. Those two worlds were still a ways apart.
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