Way back last decade, in 1999, before this website was even a blog, I wrote an article for MyMac magazine called "Why the Obsession With Market Share?" that said, in part:
Market share alone is pretty meaningless. If Apple can manufacture, market, and sell each of its computers at a profit, then whether it has 2% of 15% of the market doesn't matter at all to whether the company is financially healthy.
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Increased market share is a symptom of those results, not the result itself. Keep that in mind the next time a pundit spouts off about Apple's market share -- whether it's rising or dropping -- or when you're tempted to talk about it yourself.
What counts is selling computers and making money doing it, so that Apple Computer will still be around -- to give us Mac users something to buy, and make money doing it -- years down the road.
This week John Gruber makes a similar point. Replace my old mentions of IBM, Compaq, Power Mac G3s, and iBooks with Dell, Motorola, iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks, and you can say plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Labels: apple, debate, geekery, history, money
This is an excellent written debate between American pundits Andrew Sullivan (iconoclastic gay right-winger and moderate Christian) and Sam Harris (well-known atheism activist and proponent of meditation) on the nature of religion and fundamentalism. It happened last spring, but I only just stumbled on it.
They continue to disagree at the end, but manage to spar more politely and interestingly than the usual shouting matches on the subject.
Labels: andrewsullivan, creationism, debate, evolution, religion, samharris