*sigh*
Geesh, let's rip our small community to shreds (and I don't just mean the guys and gals at MacRumors, but the Mac community at large) over relatively small amounts of dollars.
Get real, think about whatever else you're into besides Macs and related things. Motocycles. Antiques. Rare books. Exotic plants. Any other hobby or what-have-you I can think of. None of us would BLINK at dropping a premium amount of money on something that adds to our joy of life.
While others may see that my spending 150 bucks on a rare Kraftwerk vinyl album that glows in the dark as OUTRAGEOUS, it happens to not sting me because it's something I want, I know it works well, it looks great, and my percieved value of it and in the eyes of others involved in the collection of such things is higher than the amount paid anyway.
Is a hundred bucks really that much?! When I was a just out of high school droid, I'd drop 30 bucks worth of quarters on video games to while away an afternoon, and I worked at flippin' Burger King.
I know you can't draw an EXACT corollary with what I'm trying to say above, but we're talking about something much bigger here. There's many programmers with mouths to feed at home that worked their collective butts off to bring this work of art, this thing of beauty to the masses. They put out a beta, then a few more upgrades, and add and subtract according to inside decisions and CUSTOMER feedback. Operating System software is a living beast, and is at the heart of any personal computer. Apple believes that this is their Rolls Royce..and packed it with "i" this and "i" that to make it even more attractive, not to mention upgrades to all those OTHER "i" software packages that were GIVEN away (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto) what, you think those things were thrown together over a weekend and didn't cost anything?
Then little Apple (yeah, 4 billion in the bank in cash reserves, I know, I know...) that started in a friggin' garage, was almost destroyed in the mid '90's, had a goal to reach people like us who "get it", that has surprised and delighted us, filled us with pride, given us outstanding examples of marriages of art and science and I could go on and on and on about our favorite company on Earth (next to Harley-Davidson and Bang & Olufsen wink wink nod nod) and what a fun relationship it has been and the community has the GALL to FLIP OUT COMPLETELY about forking over what amounts to a few trips to the ATM or the amount of flippin' Starbucks coffee some of us drink over a couple of months.
Is this the generation of GIMME GIMME speaking here? The same people who BELIEVE that artists who create shouldn't be appropriately compensated for their craft? Downloading movies and music without paying a cent for it, believing that the world owes them whatever they can get for nothing.
You know who I think of as I go over all this in my mind? The guys and gals behind the scenes who brought OS X The Latest Version to fruition. Those greedy jerk-offs who work from 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon 4 days a week and all drive hot cars and still aren't satisfied? No...I'm talking about the people who worked overtime to get us this far, going home to the wife and the kid(s) and saying "Honey, it seems the community doesn't put value to our work...sometimes I feel that its all for nothing."
The price is set. Scream and yell and blabber about it all you want. Or go over to the PeeCee world. Or at least find a buddy in the education biz and get a discount that way. Or just go ahead and steal it...Apple deserves that after all, don't they?
Flame away...I know I'm pretty out of character with this particular post, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to soap-box...and after all, it's just MY opinion.