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by metaguri
5782 days ago
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Your latter point is a tautology. You win arguments by making really good ones and gaining an advantage over those you don't. By the measure of "able to win arguments" the former viewpoint is better than the latter. If you're using other measures to evaluate viewpoints, you shouldn't do so in the framework of arguments. Regarding this particular argument and how difficult it is to value ones that sound valid: at the time, this argument was quite cogent and I would have agreed with it. The author made a well-researched, well-formulated, convincing argument. He (along with many others, I'm sure) was later proven wrong, but at the time of the argument, he had a convincing case. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. Often old articles with predictions that turned out to be horribly wrong come up on here. I think that whether the person turned out to be right or wrong is not very relevant. When you make an argument you are stating your opinion at that time, and so the quality of the argument should be measured in that context. That isn't to say that you can just make wild predictions without risk of losing credibility; again, your prediction can and should be measured at the time you make it, and I think that baseless ones should be critiqued appropriately. |
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The author presented a number of fairly well known facts, but made the mistake made by many writers in treating Apple much like Gateway or another PC vendor. He threw out what sounded like facts when talking about PC Vendors having something like a 10% gross margin, but clearly was way off in assuming that figure could be used to predict Apple's sales requirements for profitability. Even most people vaguely familiar with Apple knew it as a premium brand (generally with higher prices and higher margins). When a writer doesn't know what he's talking about, he can make an argument that seems to have substance by throwing in facts that apply to something else.
Strangely, while the author was aware of problems with Macs sold as commodity items in places like Sears, and he opens quoting Steve Jobs talking about the bad experience of people shopping for computers, he seemed clueless to the notion of stores with good presentation in upscale locations reaching people besides the Mac faithful. So in addition to using PC-vendor margin numbers, he assumes the buyers are only those needing to upgrade from existing Macs.
Not taking into account the stores going after converts shows a serious lack of insight.
From the article:
"What's more, Apple's retail thrust could be one step forward, two steps back in terms of getting Macs in front of customers. Since most Mac fans already know where to buy, ..."
The funny thing is, most of his arguments against success do seem like they'd apply to the Microsoft stores.