[groups]

I think the poster's point was that he spends a lot of money on apple products, relative to his income. To understand apple's success, one should look at how much money ordinary people with ordinary jobs spend disproportionate money on products they wouldn't otherwise.

There's a graph somewhere of yearly sales figures of various cars vs the cost of those cars. There's a general exponential decline from say the toyota camry, which costs reasonably and sells a lot, to a Bentley, which is the opposite. But there's an irregular data point with the BMW 3-series, because many, many people stretch to afford it. It sells disproportionately well for that reason.

I'm not assigning judgment on how anyone spends their money, just pointing out that there are human reasons for business success and failure.

[tcdent]

I make a little more that the parent, but still don't think of Apple products as affordable. It's almost always a stretch for me to purchase them, but I wouldn't be happy with many of the other options.

In the case of my recent upgrade, I justified it as an investment in my future. I don't consider the money I spent on it to be a purchase that I would be comfortable making frequently.

Wether you are a college student of an independent developer, the technology you use affects your success. Apple has a reputation in both industries as being above-average, further demonstrated by the loyalty many users have.