back to article It's official: Mac users are morally superior to Windows users

The online donation–management company Qgiv has analyzed the charitable-giving patterns of 165,000 people and found that Mac users are far more benevolent than Windows users. Qgiv analyzed 320,000 donations given through their donation platform from November 2011 through November 2012, and discovered that the average donation …

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  1. DN4
    Coat

    Mac users

    They charitably donate to Apple, for start...

    1. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Mac users

      We already know Mac users are more gullible than Windows users, that's why they are using Macs. So big surprise they are more gullible when it comes to charity giving. Undoubtedly to the charities with the largest fundraising overheads.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: Mac users

        I feel it's about average income and not price or gullibility, read on if you care to, the rest is your basic rant.

        "We already know Mac users are more gullible than Windows users, that's why they are using Macs. "

        About gullibility: YOU already know that, I don't. I don't own a Mac., won't buy a Mac., don't care to run one. However, have you even heard of Windows 8? Even seen screens shots? The "Power User" for windows 8 is the user who can figure out how to make it run like, not look like, Windows 7. And if I'm not mistaken, there is some pretty pricey Windows 8 machines out there, so what about those people not giving?

        About price: I tend to believe it is about the average income of a Mac. user, not the prices they pay for their devices. For instance, if it was about the price of their devices then they wouldn't be buying a desktop made by Mac. or any other one size fits all PC manufacturer. After all, you can buy one graphics card that cost more than any Mac (and you'll sadly have to run it on Windows to get performance out of it). Some people I know have spent so much money on their Windows 7 gaming machines, that they make any All-in-one PC manufacturer like Macintosh look like a "Value Price" second-hand brand.

        No matter the details, it is good to see that more people with a higher income are being charitable. So hats off to those higher income people. Merry Christmas!

        1. ElReg!comments!Pierre
          Facepalm

          Blatant abuse of statistics

          "No matter the details, it is good to see that more people with a higher income are being charitable. So hats off to those higher income people. Merry Christmas!"

          The details do matter a lot, mind you. How many MacOS users gave anything compared to others? What was the distribution? What was the donation normalised to income? What was the proportion of the userbase for each system?

          Did 2000 Firefox user with no income give $2 each? that would drive the average way down. Perhaps one single billionnaire MacOS user gave $2000000 and all the others gave 2 cents each?

          Means are utterly useless in that case. Statistically, this is a non-story. And as the whole thing is a non-issue I can't be bothered to go do _actual_ statistics on the raw numbers (provided they are even available). Maybe we can Have Randall XKCD to do a real analysis, he gets off on this kind of things.

          1. David Glasgow

            Re: Blatant abuse of statistics

            If you can get the raw data, a fiver says there won't be significant differences between SD, skewness, etc.

            . .... or should that be £5 to your favourite charity?

            1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

              Re: Blatant abuse of statistics

              a tenner says you have no idea (neither do I obviously, but that was my point).

              ... or should that be £10 to your favourite charity?

          2. beep54
            Coat

            Re: Blatant abuse of statistics

            I pretty much had to figure that with a title like that, the whole article was going to be one big goof. Which it was. Then when I read it, I figured, hey, at least some people are going to take this seriously so let us off to the Comments and Tally Ho!

      2. Observer1959

        Re: Mac users

        Arrogant Windows users are above giving.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Down

          Re: Mac users

          Oh piss off, troll....

        2. James Micallef Silver badge
          Facepalm

          And the Lord said....

          ...let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.... or something of the sort.

          Maybe Windows users donate to charity through other means

          Maybe Windows users are out volunteering while Mac users are clicking 'donate' from their sofas

          Maybe Windows users are poor and NEED donations

          Maybe Windows users are just cheapskates....

          OR maybe the fact that Mac users donate more than Windows users through one particular donation site out of many hundreds means nothing more than that Mac users donate more through that particular site.

          1. dogged
            Meh

            Re: And the Lord said....

            More likely, there are several orders of magnitude more Windows users (market share would appear to support this theory) which in turn means that donations are divided among a vastly bigger base, most of whom will be at work (Macs in the workplace are even rarer than Macs as consumer items) and thus wary of websites being tracked as well as more likely to contribute to an office pool.

            /shrug

            dull flamebait is dull.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Linux users.....

    .....especially those running Ubuntu are even worse. Not once have I seen a freetard ever put his (because you can bet it's a 'him' - no woman would bother using such a stupidly unusable operating system) hand in his pocket and make a donation to charity. Everyone of them is selfish

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Linux users.....

      Maybe it's just me; I'm a Linux user and I give close to £3000 away to various charities each year ...

      Only about £4 of that went via my browser though, so I'm a non-statistic ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Linux users.....

      « Everyone of them is selfish. »

      Right, that's probably why there are so many volunteers in the Free Software community who make their work available for free. They're that selfish, those freetards, giving their time instead of their money!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fuck Off ...

      Fuck Off ... in Spades ...

    4. M Gale

      Re: Linux users.....

      Look at the cute little troll. It's almost like he's intelligent.

      1. Chemist

        Re: Linux users.....

        "It's almost like he's intelligent."

        What an extraordinary assertion - where's the evidence ?

    5. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Linux users.....

      I use open source software. I donate to the projects that make the packages or distributions I use. I also donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and OpenMedia.ca (because they support the rights of individuals instead of copyright megacorporates) as well as the Free Software Foundation.

      These organisations provide me with value. They deserve compensation for their work. It isn't about business, or milking everyone else around you for every last bent copper. It's about right, wrong and a send of fairness and ethics that a certain segment of our society will never comprehend.

      Do well by me and I will do my damnedest to do well by you. Welcome to the meritocracy. If you're a douche, the internet will treat you as damage and…well you know the rest.

      1. Blitterbug
        Unhappy

        Re: Welcome to the meritocracy

        ...And you were doing so well, Trev! Don't worry, I didn't dv, I just braked to a startled halt when I hit the 'm' word. I spent many, many years in a major UK meritocratic consultancy and still wince at the memory.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          @blitterbug

          You provide something of value, I return the favour. You compete for my funds, time, attention and care on merit. You do not have a fundamental, inalienable right to anything I have; from money to me giving more than zero fucks.

          I'm sorry if that seems cruel, but it is the way I purchase products and services.

          That said I treat employees differently. Employees are not expected to constantly prove their own value to the company. It's completely asinine and insane to expect that. The levels of stress you would generate in the employee are unconscionable. People have good times and bad times; a proper employer plans for both and sticks by their employee.

          The trade of labour is not merit but loyalty. I am loyal to you; I help you when you need it, invest in your ongoing training and development. In exchange I expect you to be loyal to me: you give your all when realistically possible. You don't take years of training and run. We come to mutually agreeable decisions regarding wages. I am transparent with you about what the company can pay, you help me understand what your financial needs are. We determine if I can meet your needs and if the services you can provide are adequate value for the money. If the balance falls out, we part amicably.

          I don't have such loyalty for corporations. A corporation is not a person. It deserves no loyalty. A corporation – or an open source project – is the result of the efforts of multiple people. They are producing a product or service to be consumed. They are expecting you to give up your hard earned in exchange for it, so I expect that they are providing something that has more value (merit) than that of the competition.

          You see? There is a difference (at least in my philosophy) between how we should treat people and how we should treat companies. I realise that this isn't a view shared by all, but when it comes to the purchase of products or services from others, I am ruthlessly meritocratic. Capitalistic even.

          Philosophy, eh? It requires some complexity for some people. Almost like our perceptual and ethical parsers have more than three lines of code.

          1. Blitterbug
            Happy

            Re: @blitterbug

            An illuminating breakdown. Glad to see you differentiate between services and people. 'Unconscionable' is exactly what I witnessed on a daily basis, and it took me a long time to realise that as a developer I was being treated disproportionately better than, for example, the test team as their 'productivity' simply didn't figure in the metrics, and they didn't generate measurable revenue. Despite working just as hard as the rest of us.

            But then I always was too much of a wishy-washy liberal :(

          2. beep54

            Re: @blitterbug

            Hum, as an 'Murican I gotta jump in here with a bit of 'corporations are not people'. And very likely I don't have a lot of this quite correct, but I'll see where it goes. Admittedly, we here have gone way stupid with this idea, but as best I can remember the idea developed out of British law, probably during Colonial times when Britain had some (at the time) unthinkably huge corporations running around the world. Even so, it was pretty much agreed that this idea was simply a legal fiction to allow corporations to function and not meant to be taken at all literally. I do remember being taught that many, if not most of our Founding Fathers either distrusted or outright loathed the concept. Mainly because the Revolution had a LOT to do with how those companies were screwing the Colonies. Still, we somehow went along with the legal fiction. And now we definitely seem stuck with entities that are more equal than we (humans, that is) are.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Linux users.....

      Riiiight.....

      http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/281031-prior-bundle-statistics

      (Check out the average paid for each OS)

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: Linux users.....

        Indeed, I believe I'm #4 for the humble music bundle. Guess us open source types are all freetards seeking to rob the poor, starving artists, eh?

      2. Antony Riley
        Trollface

        Re: Linux users..... (Humble bundle stats).

        Almost worth the reg doing an article on the above link if they haven't already, trolling there readers seems to be par for the course around here.

    7. Barticus
      Trollface

      Re: Linux users.....

      If you've ever frequented the Humble Bundles you'd know that out of Windows, Mac and Linux, the Linux users are the biggest payers by far.

      There be a bridge over there. Get under it!

    8. yossarianuk

      Re: Linux users.....

      Linux is the only OS you can support without funding a patent troll therefore making it the most moral.

    9. BrentRBrian
      Pirate

      Re: Linux users.....

      ... yeah, we're the blokes looking for a hand out ....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Statistics

    These stats seem dubious to me....

    I bought one of the aforementioned macbook retina's a month back, to go with the 28" iMac, mac minis, etc I already have in my home.

    And I give fuck all to charity.

    Merry Christmas.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Statistics

      Funny how when people are told to vote they say they won't bother as one person's vote won't really make much difference or count.

      Yet one person's opinion on a comments section seems to discount thousands of other peoples opinions and their data.

      1. Ian Yates
        Stop

        Re: Statistics

        "thousands of other peoples opinions"

        Well... let's be fair, thousands of other people's choice to use one particular donation site, that I've personally never heard of.

        I'm not a Mac user, but all of my donations are either direct debit or paid directly to the charity/organisation.

        So the headline should be (if it was serious) "Qgiv is used by Mac users more than Windows users" or "Qgiv detects more 'Mac' user agents than 'Windows'", since user agent spoofing is hardly complex.

  4. sjsmoto
    Joke

    But it doesn't say where the donations went. Maybe Mac users all supported Save the Whalesong while Windows users supported Save the Bing.

  5. petur
    Meh

    And totals?

    How many did each group donate in total? I don't know what and why they are searching behind these correlations, but how about this one:

    Most Mac users/owners I know are earning quite a bit of money. I assume if you earn less and need to think about what you spend, you go for cheaper gear. So the correlation is probably more that of income versus donation.

    I'm also fairly sure this correlation will not hold for mobile platforms, because a lot of iGear owners I know put most of their cash in their status symbol (one student even had to sell it to be able to buy some music)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And totals?

      " I assume if you earn less and need to think about what you spend, you go for cheaper gear."

      That's part of the story. If you think about what you spend, it quickly becomes obvious that you can build a PC that has twice the graphics capability of a top of the range Mac for half the money. Hence a lot of people do that.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. LordHighFixer
    Facepalm

    I have a different take...

    I am a linux user and I regularly donate to various charities. However I have a different take on the the whole Mac generosity. Mac users are less technically savvy, or less savvy in general and will open their wallet if you tell them they are getting the greatest thing, or doing some good. More so if you say it is green good. This is evidenced by the simple fact that they are paying at least 30% more for their computing devices than an equivalent from another manufacturer, just for the iCandy or iBuzz. A Windows user on the other hand is a little more technically competent, as they have to be to deal with the crapware they have to deal with, so they see through more of the "giving" scams and realize they could probably help more in other ways. The linux users are the most savvy of they bunch and thus recognize most charities are scams with hugely bloated administration and instead of giving money, go directly to the source (no pun intended) to lend a helping hand.

    1. Dave 126

      Re: I have a different take...

      >This is evidenced by the simple fact that they are paying at least 30% more for their computing devices than an equivalent from another manufacturer

      Tom's Hardware would disagree with you. I could take your word for it, but Tom's were good enough to show their working and you weren't. Sorry. Obviously the UK case is different, because exchange rates can up the margins, but this study was done by a US organisation.

      Generally though, Mac users are more likely to be baby-boomers with some expendable income, their children are grown up, house is paid off etc... people who probably didn't use digital technology from a young age. Remember- for every objectionable hipster with a Macbook in a coffee shop, there will be a dozen Macs in the homes of perfectly pleasant people who don't get worked up about technology for its own sake, but do whatever they do in one of the myriad other areas of worthwhile human activity besides IT.

      >The linux users are the most savvy of they bunch and thus recognize most charities are scams with hugely bloated administration

      If the Linux folk are so savvy, wouldn't they be able to differentiate between the efficient charities and the bloated ones, rather tar them both with the same brush? I think that they are, and they can. There are also organisations that attempt to rate charities on their effectiveness, should one want guidance.

      1. Nuke
        Holmes

        @Dave126 - Re: I have a different take...

        Dave 126 wrote :- "If the Linux folk are so savvy, wouldn't they be able to differentiate between the efficient charities and the bloated ones, rather tar them both with the same brush?"

        No, they (incl me) are technically savvy, not administratively savvy. All I know is that most things I have heard about charities are about inefficiency and downright dishonesty, particularly at the middle level. I cite The Salvation Army scandal, which paricularly upset my mother as she had contributed to it for years as the "only charity she could trust". (I just Googled for it and found there is a *further* recent scandal at the SA). What percentage of lovingly collected African Aid money ends up in necessary tribute to local chiefs and warlords? Charities turned a blind eye to Jimmy Saville's activities because he brought them money.

        Jeffrey Archer raised two million pounds as a charity organiser and kept a million himself - legally, it was his fee. He rationalised it by saying that the charities got a million that they would not otherwise have had. He was not counting the lost money that people might have contributed in future if he had not fouled the scene.

        Perhaps there are "efficient" charities, but I do not have the time, resources or inclination to find them out.

    2. Sean Timarco Baggaley
      FAIL

      Re: I have a different take...

      Generalisation, much?

      " This is evidenced by the simple fact that they are paying at least 30% more for their computing devices than an equivalent from another manufacturer"

      Please, do feel free to show me the 27" iMac equivalent from HP or Dell that isn't laughably crap. Or, indeed, the "equivalent" of the Retina MacBook Pro 15" model.

      No? Thought not. Apple kit is expensive because Apple only targets the high-end markets. Because that's where the profits are to be made. The margins for the kind of low-end tat you find from Asus and Eurocom are so razor-thin, it's not worth Apple's time.

      As for:

      "A Windows user on the other hand is a little more technically competent,"

      No. Just... no.

      GNU / Linux distros, certainly. You need a certain kind of IT-obsessed masochist to get the most out of those.

      But Windows users? "Technically competent"? I want some of whatever it is you're smoking please. I'll pay, because it's clearly top-class, hardcore hallucinogenic stuff and well worth the money.

      Windows users are simply more interested in buying 'value' goods. They're the people who shop in Tescos instead of Waitrose. People who don't give a gnat's chuff about aftersales customer service until they actually need it.

      Which doesn't mean you can't have a decent Windows (or GNU / Linux, or whatever) box that runs like a dream, but the notion that Windows users are inherently more "technically competent" is, like repeatedly ramming your finger up a dog's arse while driving up and down a multi-storey car park: seriously wrong on oh, so many levels.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Re: I have a different take...

        "No? Thought not. Apple kit is expensive because Apple only targets the high-end markets. "

        Should be:

        "No? Thought not. Apple kit is expensive because Apple only targets fashion conscious gullible fools with more money than sense and a misplaced feeling of superiority ".

        There, fixed that for you.....

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I have a different take...

          Well, thats 4 fanbois frothing at the groins as we speak!!!!

    3. FutureShock999
      Flame

      Re: I have a different take...

      I bought my first PC in 1982 - an Ohio Scientific C1P with 8k of static RAM. I immediately cut traces on the motherboard and jumpered it to double the clock speed - to 2Mhz. That was after I had spent some months programming in octal on a COSMAC ELF 1802 singleboard, and after a two years of FORTRAN IV on a school's computer. I have programmed in 1802, 6502, Z-80, 8080, VAX-11, and....OS 360 assembler. I won't mention the year of APL coding I did, nor writing my first processor simulator at 18 - when it was still hard...on a timeshared IBM SYSTEM-34. And I won't mention being a beta tester for Borland Turbo Pascal...running on a Molecular Z-80 Supermicro under CP/M. Your tech credentials frankly don't come close.

      And now ALL I use is MACS. By choice. Best designed platform I have ever used, with the possible exception of NEXT. (SGI was a close third, and I admit I didn't use BeOS much.) So fuck off that only the tech incompetent use Macs. Really and once and truly for all.

      1. t.est

        Re: I have a different take...

        Those who voted you down are the "tech sawy" who are so insecure and unknowing that they have to hide behind that label.

        Most of them probably don't even know what your talking about in this post. So sawy they are.... hrmph.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I have a different take...

      Why do the windows guys then always ask if and how you can do things.

      The problem is that the less technically sawy, actually listens to your crap talk, cause they don't have the skills to check up if that's so.

      Maybe you like to fiddle around in Linux, or Coping with Window's inconsistency. But I appreciative when the software get out of the way and I can concentrate, on what I want to accomplish.

      I've donated to some freeware and shareware stuff, but I think not once to any open source stuff. Simply if it's something I really like I do think they are worthy of the little I can contribute.

      I'm not a rich guy, when I buy a computer I see it as an Investment. I'm still using my 6 year old Mac Pro, and have no intention to upgrade yet. It has served me well. Nothing I can say about the computers I use at work. Next month it will be my 4th work computer while I'm still happy with my mac at home.

  7. M Gale

    Average salary of Mac vs Windows PC owner?

    Just wondering. I'm no Christian, but I do recall some parable about a rich guy putting a hefty chunk of silver on the plate, and a poor man giving away a few pennies.. everything he owned, basically.

    No, I'm not so petty as to accuse Mac owners of being misers. They're as much a victim of lock-in as Windows slaves, moreso in some ways. However, it may explain an increased absolute level of donations.. because that doesn't take proportion into account.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Average salary of Mac vs Windows PC owner?

      You're right, yet again the Reg headline is taking liberties with the source material... morality or otherwise can't be judged by the information in the article. We're looking at difference in donations of dozens of dollars, when income can vary much more than that. The very poorest won't have computers, the very richest will have a PA do things for them. There are more ways to give than through a computer browser- though the richer folk would want to get the tax benefits of charitable donation, which on-line giving makes easier.

      Studies suggest that poor people give away a greater percentage of their income than rich people.

      In the UK, charities have seen a marked drop in donations this year.

      Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are trying to convince fellow billionaires that giving away half their fortune won't leave them on the breadline.

    2. toadwarrior
      Facepalm

      Re: Average salary of Mac vs Windows PC owner?

      You can't really claim poverty just because you're buying a windows PC. Some are more expensive than Macs, you know.

    3. Toastan Buttar
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Average salary of Mac vs Windows PC owner?

      "Just wondering. I'm no Christian, but I do recall some parable about a rich guy putting a hefty chunk of silver on the plate, and a poor man giving away a few pennies.. everything he owned, basically."

      Errrrrmmmm, I think you'll find it was a chick rather than a bloke.

      Mark 12:44

  8. FanMan

    "It appears that Mac users are merely more unselfish with their disposable income than are their Windows-using counterparts."

    Or maybe they have more disposable income because, starting from zero, a Mac will get you where you need to be faster than any other ordinateur. Fact.

    1. Darryl

      "a Mac will get you where you need to be faster than any other ordinateur."

      Huh? Is this 'Mac' you speak of some sort of motorized transportation? Perhaps a sexual aid?

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