[JohnBooty]

Replying to this one since I think we reached max nesting. Regarding as to why somebody might not be in a hurry to upgrade a 2015 Mac to an M2:

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m2_8_gpu-vs-...

To put it in fully objective terms, a lot of development tasks (for many people) are still dominated by single-core performance.

The M2 has roughly 2x single-core performance, which is going to be absolutely awesome if you're spending a lot of time waiting for the CPU. But if that's not really a bottleneck, and the things you do are already completing at a speed that doesn't disrupt your flow state or otherwise consume significant amounts of your day.

I'm working (on my 2018 MBP) on some Python software that does science stuff. The single core perf delta between my CPU and the M2 is even smaller for a lot of tasks, more like 50% instead of 100%. And I'm not doing anything that would really benefit from more than 6 cores.

I'm currently planning an upgrade, but it's just not a pressing need as $2K-$3K is a significant investment for me at the moment.

    I can't imagine an F1 mechanic not taking an interest 
    in the latest marginally improved wrench

F1 teams have mandated cost caps. I'm not entirely sure if that includes tooling, but even if not, budgets are not infinite and there is a time cost required to research and acquire new tools. Time and money spend getting wrenches are time and money not spent elsewhere. So I would think there is a constant pressure (like in any business) to identify real bottlenecks, not just spend unlimited amounts of money on increased capabilities that may or may not have any bearing on actual performance. Presumably this is why a developer might choose a regular M2 or M3, but not necessarily the maxxed-out M3 MAX with 192GB of RAM and 8TB SSD for $10,000 or whatever (I know I'm exaggerating). Yes it's more performance, no it won't matter for many workloads.

[georgespencer]

There is no daylight between us on any of these points.

My position is not that there aren't good reasons to have not upgraded from a 2015 Mac, or that I'm having trouble imagining what they are, but rather that it's a reasonable question to ask of someone in this specific forum.

> F1 teams have mandated cost caps…

We're not really arguing the point here. OP was not trying to pass an exam about the specific details of how F1 teams operate.

[robertlagrant]

> OP was not trying to pass an exam about the specific details of how F1 teams operate.

They were extending the analogy to make a counter point. That's a good faith thing to do.

[georgespencer]

Very true and sorry if it seemed that I was criticizing them for doing it.

I believe that OP's intention was to suggest that professionals who work in fields with high demands for performance, like professionals who are passionate about their work, are likely to invest in new and improved ways of accomplishing their work, even if it's only a marginal gain. (e.g. the marginal gain of moving from Spotlight to Raycast was worth it for me).

Discussing cost controls in Formula 1 moves us further away (IMO) from that universal truth they were trying to cast a light on.