What is your reasoning behind labeling building one's own PCs as bullshit, as opposed to buying Macs?
As DHH said in Twist interview: "If you're not working on your best idea right now, you're doing it wrong"
It takes me ~10 minutes to shop online and buy the parts I need to put together my own PC. When I receive it, it takes me an additional 15 minutes to unbox it, and put it all together. Then another 30 installing the OS and all the programs I will need.
That's less than an hour. Given the price difference between a Mac and a PC with the same exact equipment (same CPU, RAM, HD, etc), we're looking at ~$250 USD on the low end and ~$550 USD on the high end. Unless you're making $250 USD (or more) per hour, it's most definitely cheaper time-wise to build your own PC.
15 minutes to unbox probably doesn't include taking out the trash. :)
I'm a power user, so I need a lot of programs and setting them up properly usually takes 4-6 hours if not more. Just finding and installing proper driver for stuff like my Wacom tablet takes 30 minutes or so. Again, if you do this every day, then yes, it could be much faster. But I buy a new computer once in 4-5 years and really cannot bother to automate.
Last two times I got a new computer, it took me 2-3 days before I could work on them at full speed. It sure is worth more than $550. Not calculating the cost of stress if something does not work properly.
I have been using Linux for 7+ years and Mac for just over one year. The difference: Mac is mostly Plug and Play. Linux is often Plug and Pray. Hell, doing something simple like copy/paste on Linux still feels like a game of chance.
I love open-source and freedom, but as I got kids I became more pragmatic. The time is limited and I'd rather spend it on building stuff than figuring out some quirks in the operating system.
No, this isn't true at all. The first time you put together your own computer, sure, maybe, it may take a bit longer. But the next time and the time after that, it becomes quicker and quicker because you already know the basics. It only takes 10 minutes to see what new GPUs or CPUs have come out.
Hell, if you didn't know anything about PCs, it would only take 5 minutes to look up all the parts in the latest Mac and order them off newegg. You could build your own exact copy of the latest mac and the research time would be negligible since you already know what parts you need since they're listed right there on the Mac SPEC sheet. And you'd save yourself hundreds of dollars.
> Last two times I got a new computer, it took me 2-3 days before I could work on them at full speed.
My 64 year old senile-ish father without any background in PCs put together his own PC and had it up and running in less than 4 hours. I don't buy 2 days at all. That's either an exaggeration or an outright lie.
> I'm a power user
A power user that cannot put together his own PC in under 2 days? I'm not sure I buy that. It's like a MLB player not being able to hit a ball that's traveling over 65 MPH. Even the pitchers are well enough versed to get hits occasionally.
Is this assuming that one would be building a PC with only a few years in-between?
It’s been more than 8 years since I built a PC, having assembled three of them in the past. It would definitely take me more than 10 minutes to research hardware because, after being shielded from the hardware complexity after using a Mac for so long, I’d need to research to make sure my previous knowledge of how to build a PC are still applicable.
Sure, it wouldn’t take me 2 days, and if not a lot has changed since I last built one four hours seems doable. But if I was very unsure of myself somewhere in the middle is more realistic and probably a more accurate assumption of how long it would take someone research, order and assemble a PC.
Your 64 year old senile-ish father probably uses one or two applications. I use over 50 different programs.
Also, I don't care about hardware at all. Last thing I remember is that there were Slot 1 and Slot A CPUs. I would need to research stuff before even figuring out which components are compatible. Perhaps it's all user-friendly now, but back in the day I recall always missing some cable or adapter to get stuff to work (like USB-PS2 converters for mouse or VGA-HDMI converters for monitors, etc.).
I care about building software. Hardware stuff is not something I need or want to deal with.
It would be like MLB player going to a baseball bat factory to make his own bat. He just wants a good bat. He doesn't care what wood is it made of, or what material is used for coating. He wants to pay for top-notch bat and concentrate on hitting the balls.
Of course, with all of us being different humans with different experiences and different mindsets, YMMV.
I had an IBM laptop before I had a Mac. At least one major component had to be replaced every single year for the duration of the four years I had it. Keys broke. the screen was shite. Windows crashed constantly. I lost all my files multiple times. After having it for more than a year it ran as if someone had permanently applied the brakes and it was just grinding against them and no amount of service seemed to be able to fix this. I spent weeks searching for the specific charger I needed only for the company to ship the wrong one, then when I had to replace it a second time they no longer manufactured it so I had to buy one second hand. That machine was an utter sinkhole of money and time. I swore off Windows products that day and have not spent a dime on them since. Maybe things have gotten better since XP but I'm not about to risk it.
Now I have a Mac. I have had the same MBP for 6+ years and it has never once required service, it runs perfectly, has never lost data, and has been a charm to work with. Sure, it cost me 2x as much as the IBM but in cumulative costs that is nothing. I could easily see this laptop lasting me another year at least.
I am not saying you are wrong, just providing my experience in which the cost of ownership in money and time has in fact been lower.
I don't need to reinstall the OS or download an uninstaller to remove bloatware. I don't need to install antivirus (yeah, this one isn't required, but the reality is that there is much more malware targeting Windows). I don't need to wait for Windows Update to finish before my computer shuts down or boots up - these are particularly painful. I don't need to worry about programs scaling to a retina/high DPI display. I don't need to spend time reading articles about how Windows 10 is tracking me and how to prevent it. I don't need to worry about my laptop breaking, because if it does, I'm a genius bar appointment away from getting it fixed. If my Samsung laptop breaks, I need to ship the whole thing, likely wasting weeks.
Not everyone experiences these issues, but this is how it feels for me. I made a very gradual transition to OS X - owning PCs, building PCs, using OS X on my PCs for almost a decade, then finally buying a Retina Macbook Pro.
While some of your points are valid for *nix setups as well (in terms of hardware, etc.) you've implicitly made the assumption that the only alternative to OS X is Windows, which strikes me as somewhat off base in a place like HN.