Originally posted by: kamper
Originally posted by: Smilin
Question to ponder:
So consider viruses, spyware etc to just be "software". Call them "bad software".
What is the ratio of "good software" to "bad software" for the Mac versus PC? I don't know what this ratio would be...it might very well come out in the Macs favor, I dunno.
Windows having that huge marketshare obviously has the downside of making it a richer target for bad software but it has the upside of making it a more lucrative market for good software.
What I do know: There isn't much "bad software" for a Mac, but heck the offering of good software for the mac is pretty sad compared to windows. I wonder what the ratio is?
I'm not sure how to bring cars into this particular one.
There's a some problems with that argument. First "not malicious" !(necessarily)= "good software". I'm sure there are plenty of well intentioned but stupid and incompetent developers out there so you should also address the relative usefulness of the "good software". I can't speak for others but I don't personally care how much software is available on windows because I don't really need anything that doesn't run on the platforms I do use. Hell, I probably don't need most of the stuff that I have now anyway
Of course if you talk about business software, then it's obvious that windows does have a major advantage there...
I'm gonna try something new and daring and draw a car analogy. Try to follow me if you can. Lets say there's a car from manufacturer A and one from manufacturer B. Car A gets me to work and back for a decent price. So does car B but car B but car B also has a huge aftermarket parts industry. Particularly you can buy these huge anti-theft devices, which are cumbersome but necessary, since thieves have so much more opportunity to practice their techniques on car B, which is much more common.
People also tend to stick a lot of flyers on the windshield of car B when it's parked, to the point that you have to get special wipers to get them off so you can see to drive. Fortunately, you can generally get these wipers for free and people sometimes install 4 or 5 of them at the same time. Car A has a different windshield design and nobody's bothered to figure out how to stick flyers to it yet.
Now neither car comes with a cd player, but most people like to add one, because you often swap cds with friends or business associates. Manufacturer B makes an insanely expensive cd player that has a billion bells and whistles, most of which I don't ever need to touch. This cd player works best in car B, but there is a version for car A if you need it (but it's usually a bit out of date and nobody markets it so hardly anyone buys it). Manufacturer A doesn't really make cd players but, amazingly, there are many cd players that are given away for free that work just fine in car A. None are quite as comprehensive as the one from manufacturer B, but they do offer a lot more choice and fill most people's needs. The downside is that they sound a bit funny when playing cds made for manufacturer B's player and people switching from one to the other sometimes get confused because the buttons are in different places.
I drive car A. I happen to be a bit of a mechanic (no expert, but better than most of my friends). It gets really annoying when people ask me to fix problems on their carBs when I'm pretty sure the problems wouldn't have occurred on my car, but whatever...