Ask HN: Apple Bias – Real or Imagined?

6 points by _4msi 5 years ago | 17 comments

I think it's apparent that discussions about Apple tend to be noticeably more polarising than similar posts about other Big Tech. I have got myself into some heated exchanges in the last couple of days. I was presented with the following claims (paraphrased):

HN commentary and commenters are biased in favour of Apple.

Only Apple has defenders in the community who counterclaim against negative assertions.

While I argue that this isn’t true, based on my (biased) opinion and minimal experience, I would like to know if others have experienced the same claim, wish to present evidence to back that claim, or could present a different take on the situation.

In responding to the original claim, I went rooting through posts on major tech companies looking for those favouring other giants, and I found some. Then I was reminded that I was looking for people speaking up in favour, to oppose detractors, and again I found evidence.

The search caused me to ask: can we prove, or disprove, that HN has a specific Apple bias? Whether it's positive or negative, whether it's stronger than bias around other tech companies?

Spooky23 5 years ago |

Apple is different because it’s a super-vertical. “I love/hate Apple” goes from the physical layer up to the entire platform and ecosystem. Apple is a shared experience.

Nobody gives a hoot about Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc because they are just commodity providers. People do very much care about Microsoft, but they do so on different horizontal layers — finance guys love Excel, IT guys love AD, developers love Visual Studio. But... there is no shared experience.

I think bias is the wrong characterization. End of the day, Apple is very good at communicating their position on things, and they do it across their portfolio. My nine year old son is somehow excited about the M1 chip. Some of the stuff that sounds like bias is really a reflection of people actually knowing what the company is doing.

Other than niche companies like Ferrari, I can’t think of anyone better at marketing and communications than Apple.

rbrtl 5 years ago | |

The vendor lock-in aspect of the super-vertical integration is definitely one of the more abundant points of complaint I see. I get that it's a controversial choice, and it goes hand in hand with their proprietary standard model, which I think is what feeds my suspicion that there is actual bias at play, as opposed to strong opinions being voiced without the bias.

There seems to be as much shared experience in ragging on Apple as there is in using their products and maybe in supporting their positions in the face of naysayers. Other providers offer similar integrated experience. Google has entries in most hardware markets, and Amazon certainly exercises a ubiquity across more than just the IT industry.

I wondered about 'bias' being the right thing to talk about, of course I was influenced by the complainants characterisation. I imagine I have a pro-Apple bias to some degree. Certainly I know I like the products, infrastructure, and integration, and I'm largely supportive of their technical direction. Is it bias, or are these conversations purely opinion based?

I don't fully understand what you mean by "a reflection of people actually knowing what the company is doing." There might be some misinformation floating around, but I would expect that to balance over time and subject matter. If you mean that some people chime in to these conversations without enough information I suppose my lesson here is not to feed the trolls :)

Great to hear the young one is interested!

Spooky23 5 years ago | | |

If you follow Apple stuff, ask a random non nerd about something that recently happened in the Apple universe and they’ll typically know at least half of the story. They may not understand, but awareness exists. Ask people about any other company except maybe Facebook. They have no clue. Nobody knows what version of Windows they have, etc.

Apple rarely has more than a half dozen SKUs in any category. Everyone knows what they are. Even people who complain about Apple know about the products.

mattbrewsbytes 5 years ago |

There are developers with biases for/against most major tech companies, Apple is no different. Developers tend to be extremely opinionated about stuff they use (e.g. vi vs. emacs) and aren't afraid to voice that opinion. HN is a good place to do that because usually there is good signal to noise ratio in the discussions.

Apple is a company that uses emotion when describing their products. I think this tends to bring out stronger opinions than a tech company like Google. People's perception of companies isn't going to be rational.

What is your end goal with proving/disproving a bias regarding Apple on HN?

I think what is more interesting is exploring the root cause for some of these biases - sometimes there is history of a person strongly disliking Microsoft so their perception of Apple is based in that. Sometimes someone really dislikes closed source/eco-system and prefers open-ness and tinker-ability.

sigmaprimus 5 years ago |

I think there is a bias, I don't know if it is FOR or AGAINST or evenly balanced between the two camps.

The scary thought is could the whole for or against argument be created or atleast promoted by Apple itself in order to be the topic of conversation? I seem to recall a successful add campaign by Apple that did just that a long time ago. "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC"

rbrtl 5 years ago | |

I agree. My position is that is a company is big enough people will have an opinion, and if there's an opinion to be had there's probably an opposition in there somewhere. I like the "reverse PR" theory, kinda the "no press is bad press" argument. Mac vs. PC ads are a great point! Definitely a polarisation at the time, I think Linux can be found in a lot of the most outspoken commentary around here.

the_only_law 5 years ago |

I feel like there's always been a vocal anti apple crowd, sometimes justified, sometimes not. Nothing specific to hacker news.

dnh44 5 years ago |

Apple has always attracted spirited conversation. I remember Apple computers being referred to as “toys” back in the 80’s because of the GUI and mouse. The discussions of Apple on HN have long and old roots. It’d be interesting to have a look at the old flame wars on usenet.

rbrtl 5 years ago | |

One of my favourite Usenet posts is Linus' tirade at Tanenbaum over MINIX.

mettamage 5 years ago | | |

Apparently, there's a Wikipedia page on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...

st1x7 5 years ago |

> The search caused me to ask: can we prove, or disprove, that HN has a specific Apple bias? Whether it's positive or negative, whether it's stronger than bias around other tech companies?

How are you going to tell apart bias in favour of Apple and just being in favour of Apple?

Maybe it's easier to prove in some of the positive cases if you notice that people are making demonstrably incorrect favorable statements. But I doubt that you can reliably prove that bias doesn't exist.

rbrtl 5 years ago | |

It's a good question. I don't really have the data science chops to come up with the methodology. I was always a weak statistician...

I'm not looking to prove that there is no bias, I'm devilishly interested in whether actual bias is stronger around Apple, don't mind if it's favourable or not.

cblconfederate 5 years ago |

while most big tech "fanboy" clubs don't exist anymore (e.g. google), apple's seems to be still going on

They also still uphold their founder's cult of personality

rbrtl 5 years ago | |

I think Google may have lost some of the ferocity in their loyalists around May 2018, when they removed the "Do no evil" clause from their code of conduct. That was an easy hook on which to hang an uncritical defence.

sidibe 5 years ago | |

Tesla has the same thing going, moreso than I ever remember for Apple even when Jobs was alive.

qppo 5 years ago |

I think HN just has more Apple customers who are ok with everything apple does. Except maybe the keyboards on MacBooks.

A lot of negative comments come from people who don't or won't buy Apple products. Which is fine, because there are a lot of positive comments from people that only own Apple devices. There's bullshit everywhere and it helps to know what it smells like.

kristianp 5 years ago |

Hacker News posters have been a long-time fan of Macs, especially since OS-X (which predates hacker news). Paul Graham's article [5], "Return of the Mac" (2005) has been an influence, or at least explained the popularity amongst hackers.

[5]http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html