Are Apple Enthusiasts Miserable?
2025-05-03
It's been on my mind to write about Apple enthusiast user culture for the past couple weeks and this morning the title of the current Rebound podcast got my attention: General Misery About Life and Technology. I write this post as a former Apple enthusiast, a 30+ year user of Apple computers and devices. When I bought my first Mac in 1992 I just needed a computer to write my masters thesis. It was just a tool. I got on the early internet for emailing my thesis advisor and wrote my thesis. Then the computer went mostly unused for three years.
It was around 1997 that I began to serve as my activist community's informal computer nerd and I also began to slowly sink into Apple user enthusiast culture. Ironic because the community I was a part of was an anarchist community and if you know anything about anarchism you know that at it's core it is anticapitalist. But at the time Apple was the little tech company about to go out of business pitted against Microsoft, the megacorp.
I called a local ISP to get internet access and was told my Color Classic would not run Netscape Navigator and that I would likely need to upgrade my computer. I knew the Mac so step one was to read the Mac magazines of the time to sort out a new computer. It was my first dip into MacWorld and whatever other Apple/Mac magazines I could find. I found an option I could barely afford and bought it. As I began spending more and more time in front of a screen learning to code websites I turned to those magazines and the early Apple enthusiast web to learn about desktop publishing and graphic design. I started with Claris Works which became Apple Works and began using those apps to design flyers and pamphlets to promote our various activist projects.
As I dipped into that world I began taking note of the tech industry of the time, I began to root for Apple as the scrappy underdog. Yes, yes, I was aware that it was a capitalist, but it was also the only choice I was aware of that was not Microsoft. So I let it slide. By 2000 I was spending much of my freetime in front of a Mac. Not just a Mac, but my Mac which was no longer just a tool but a valued possession. When I wasn't working on a website or designing a flyer I was looking for new ways to use it. I dipped my toes into FileMaker Pro to catalog our little community library and put it online. I was learning Quark and not long after InDesign.
I think there's a strange thing that happens when one spends a lot of time in front of a computer. For some it is just a tool and never more. But for others we begin to tinker and tweak. The look for reasons to stay in front of the screen. We spend so much time with the tool that we come to view it as an extension of ourselves, a necessary extension that we don't want to be without. We've seen a similar thing happen with people and their smart phones.
At some point during those years, my identification with Apple's computers and Apple the company began to mix as my time spent online also included more time in Apple user communities, mostly news/rumor sites with forums and then also blogs that included comment sections. And it's a slippery slope because there's always something new just around the corner. Not just another shiny product that promises more happiness in the form of a temporary dopamine hit, but there's always another new app to try, another website to open in another tab and on and on. It fits with our nature as humans (or my understanding and experience of being a privileged human living in a wealthy nation in 2025), that we're always looking for the next thing and when we think that thing is to be found with a tap or a click of a link, well, you can see where that goes.
And so, I found myself sliding down that slope. It's easy. And I think there's a lot of quiet background psychology that goes on. Everything from a kind of tribalism to identity to social status seeking and more I'm sure. Frankly, it's weird as fuck that we are so susceptible or, at least some of us are. It seems pretty clear that these are all human traits used by capitalism in marketing. But, wait, back to Apple.
The turn-around of Apple in the early 2000s and it's rise to its current stature as a tech behemoth today is quite a thing. I went along for the ride. I allowed myself to mostly ignore the ugly underside of this reality because "they're all guilty of something" made it seem like a no-win situation. For all of their apparent greed, at least Apple seemed to be taking real action on their climate and environmental impact. They paid lip service to diversity and seemed to promote an almost progressive culture so I mostly ignored the fact that it was marketing. Until I didn't. And then I began to consider the viability of making some sort of switch.
But even then I knew it would require some real effort. It's easy to make excuses to just stay put. And the truth was, I knew Apple's OS, I knew the apps I relied on, I enjoyed the ease of use that came with familiarity. I'm sure the same is true of those that use and are enthusiastic about using Windows every day. And the people that use and rely on Google services. It's easy to think that there are no other options or that the other options won't work for us. And the monetary investment in apps further sticks us in place.
Back to the episode of the Rebound that I mentioned, I gave it a listen. I've not listened to it or any other of the other Apple-oriented podcasts that I've listened to in the past. Why bother? But I am curious, what is the cut-off for other people? At what point do users decide they've had enough? Apple podcasts are often full of snark, and, in recent years, increasing frustration and cynicism. Apple's growth into a trillion dollar goliath is lost on no one with two eyes. It's been a very long time since the days of the scrappy underdog Apple and longtime enthusiasts can't unsee the truth of capitalist greed as each year brings more outrage. It bothers people to see such extreme, obscene wealth accumulation even as the company is correctly perceived to be engaged in a perpetual money grab with it's app store policies and the malicious compliance response to regulation and court rulings. It's iCloud pricing is ridiculous as is its hardware upgrade options such as drive storage. Then there's the union busting at its retail stores. And of course, that's just a sampling.
But customers just keep paying. Enthusiasts who are likely most aware of the enshitification and malicious behavior just keeping on handing over their cash offering little more than the increased bitching we hear on podcasts and in forum posts.
I think it's easily understandable that the non-geek majority of users stick with Apple simply because tech is not something they're focused on. For many folks (my family is a great example), an iPhone is their only computer and the inner workings of Apple is of no concern. They just want an easy to use device they can use but not think about. But the enthusiasts that know the details of the machinations of the company are also often technical to the degree that they could actually choose to migrate to easily accessible alternatives. While not terribly easy it is actually very doable. And I'm not just talking about an all-or-nothing switch to Linux but even just sincere discussion of the alternatives along with a sharing of efforts made to implement those alternatives in a process.
I'll end by pointing out that I think such a public discussion amongst podcasters and other published media would make for useful and really interesting content. Stop bitching and dig into actually useful exploration of technology. I suspect folks might go from feeling their computing is miserable or frustrating to finding it enjoyable again. Personally I've found it a lot of fun and really rewarding to return to a more independent computing that I control. I've not only liberated myself from the group think of Apple consumerism but I've opened myself to new computing experiences.
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