Macs and PCs a new digital divide

Over the past couple of years, Apple has been making steady progress in increasing its market share in the personal computer business, even while it was tromping everyone else in the music player and more recently mobile phone business.  While significant, the fact that their share of units sold has continuously grown pales in relation to the significance that their revenue share has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Recent numbers show that more than one in every two dollars spent on desktop computers in the US is spent on an Apple equipment.  At the same time, more than one dollar in every three spent on notebooks is spent on an Apple branded portable.  The huge difference between Apples share of the market in units sold against its share in dollars earned is directly related to the fact that while PC makers are busy fighting for every consumer in the low-end portion of the market, Apple decided that it would continue to produce more sophisticated products that it could sell for a premium.

In a not too distant past, when first these sorts of number for Apples revenue share came out, a friend asked me what I made of this.  Without much thought I gave him an answer that has given me pause to think a lot.  "It seems that most people that want to buy a GOOD computer, buy an Apple computer."

That simple statement has come back to my mind frequently and done more so in the past couple of weeks as I went through the motions of getting a new notebook and ended up reaching the conclusion that a MacBook was the best solution for me.  Reflecting back on all my reasoning about this choice, one thing stands out.  Once I had concluded that it made basic financial sense due to battery replacement costs (which inevitably follow per my experience with Dell), the shear fact that with a Mac I can do anything I can with a PC, but with a PC I can't do everything I do with a Mac seemed like the ultimate argument.

This essentially stems from the a relation Mac and PCs share with squares and rectangles:  all Macs are PCs, but not all PCs are Macs.   Could this lead us into a new divide based on social factors?  Are we moving towards a world where those who can afford it have Macs and everybody else has a PC because that is all that they can get?