> "you actually pay for the product experience instead for being part of some deeply troubling subculture"
I appreciate your larger argument but this statement is ironic in light of your previous paragraph :/.
IME (with time as an Apple software engineer) the Apple subculture _is_ a deeply troubling subculture. Take the iPhone for example: small, insignificant iterations that demand a premium. Consider the litany of software flaws that line BigSur and Catalina? What is the end consumer truly gaining with this new iteration? Would you respond "product experience"? Yet Apple appears to be doing well YoY with their returns on these products.
I'm particularly fond of your phrasing though: "cargo cult". Again, ironically applicable to Apple.
What I like about Apple fanboy subculture is that it's generally positive. Apple fans can get smirky when discussing Apple but would't chase down and brigate, turning every discussion about competitors into "We are smart Apple elites but good for you for trying". Competitor hateboys are not common among Apple fanboys.
On the other hand they would be always targeted by people who are not in the Apple ecosystem, usually called sheep and explained how they are supposed to not be happy with the product they bought.
For me, Apple is the company that cares about experience design as primary concern and that's why I care about what they are doing. It's intellectually stimulating, much more than chasing the random metric that somehow everyone decided that it's the number to look for.
For example, lately everyone would talk about bezel to screen ratio. Previously it was Ghz, Megapxels, core numbers and what not.
There might not be as many hateboys, but what I have found is that Apple fanboys are significantly more defensive, and often respond poorly to criticism, and are generally at best dismissive of it. This is probably a result of being so frequently accosted by said hateboys, but it makes nuanced discussion outside of the bounds of marketing copy difficult. Then again, rarely do fanboys make it easy...
I appreciate your larger argument but this statement is ironic in light of your previous paragraph :/.
IME (with time as an Apple software engineer) the Apple subculture _is_ a deeply troubling subculture. Take the iPhone for example: small, insignificant iterations that demand a premium. Consider the litany of software flaws that line BigSur and Catalina? What is the end consumer truly gaining with this new iteration? Would you respond "product experience"? Yet Apple appears to be doing well YoY with their returns on these products.
I'm particularly fond of your phrasing though: "cargo cult". Again, ironically applicable to Apple.