My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

I think it actually would be quite near the top, in terms of ranking. Most hobbies are a lot cheaper.

Of course, not near the top in terms of money because there are a few hobbies that cost vastly more.

What do you mean "in terms of ranking" vs "in terms of money"?

I mean if you ranked all the hobbies in terms of cost, casually spending $3k on a laptop would be near the top of the list. But there are a small number of hobbies that are vastly more expensive.

The distribution is highly skewed. Like wealth. The 99th percentile are near the top in rank (by definition) but nowhere near the top in absolute terms.

Just off the top of my head in hobbies that I've been in/around that this $3k would be a nothing burger: photography, wood working, grease monkey, cycling, gun collecting, antiquing, recreational substances...

There’s some nuance to it.

Judging by the authors preference for Linux, I’m guessing this hobby has some professional applications as well.

$3k is the price of a very nice guitar, but I am not about to casually shell out that money every few years.

However, I earn my wage using a computer, so it’s a lot easier to justify staying relatively current on specs.

Median vs mean, essentially, is how I read it.

Try general aviation as a hobby. It will be eye opening

I actually can’t think of one hobby that costs less than $3k

For me the only one would be sketching/painting. But I agree with the point in general, most hobbies cost a lot.

A lot of things are cheap to taste — a second hand bike and some $200 running shoes and you’re training for a triathlon. Or a makerspace membership and you’re now sewing or doing 3d printing.

It’s once you get “serious” and need to have your own equipment that all these things get real. Or in the case of things like social dance, you want to take time off with and travel further and further away to attend pricey exchanges and camps.

cross training ?

I interpreted it as: if you include all hobbies and games made by humans in history, I'm pretty sure most of them involve a set of cards made of paper, some others involving wooden figurines (chess, checkers) or even drawing on dirt with a stick.

A computer is many, many orders of magnitude more complex and expensive than that.

This isn't said with the intention to demonize expensive hobbies if no one is harmed because of it.

But I do sometimes wonder if my hobbies are too dependent of a power plug. Even reading, which I do with a e-reader.

No, if cross training qualified, those in cross training would be sure to tell you they did cross training and go into details about it

You can absolutely be a hobbyist photographer for a fraction of $3k. A hobbyist lens collector is a different story.

Well, there’s hobbies and there’s a buying addiction that comes with a hobby.

In many areas there’s a tendency to overdo it with tools, gadgets and also to compensate for lack of skill with more gadgets. I do woodworking for example and my total spend for industrial vacuum, different types of power and hand tools, work bench, clamps, etc probably comes to around a few thousand EUR. Mine is a really good set-up for a hobby, but I still don’t have any stationary machines or fancy separate work area or room. I bought everything over the years and I only buy brand-name. My point is, this is actually a lot of money especially if spent as lump sum and not at all a “nothing-burger”.

Thinking it’s a hobby is an american thing. I’ve never met anyone who do it, but for Kobe Bryant, Harrisson Ford, Tom Cruise it seems normal.

Most people save $400 per month tops, that they spend on holidays.

Knitting / crocheting / quilting / embroidering? Drawing / painting / calligraphy? Singing in a choir? Creative writing / journaling / blogging? Solving crossword puzzles? Bird watching? Day hikes? Reading? Visiting museums? Learning about history / philosophy / art / whatever? Learning a language? Taking dance classes? Playing chess or petanque or any other game that doesn’t require expensive gear? Or most sports?

It’s perfectly possible to enjoy hobbies deeply without getting “serious” in the way you describe.

I’ve taken my 10 euro dance classes for years without feeling the necessity of pricey exchanges and camps.

My neighbour goes to the park many evenings to play petanque, doesn’t cost him anything.

A couple I’m friends with goes on day hikes where they do bird watching—maybe they bought a nice pair of binoculars once? Another couple likes to lay jigsaw puzzles together, not exactly breaking the bank!

My sister is learning Finnish because she never learned a non indo-european language. She bought a book.

I would wager most people’s hobbies are low key like this because either they don’t have disposable income to spend on them, or they don’t want too!

I can not think of many hobbies which are less expensive if you are serious about them. Some hobbies around me, where $3000 wouldn't get you far: Motorcycles, cars, cycling, collecting anything, woodworking, machining, music making, traveling, horses,...

Absolutely yeah, and regardless of whether it ends up eventually being expensive, I think part of what I’m saying is that it is important to know how to at least start something cheaply.

I get very frustrated with the kind of people who see one tiktok about a thing and suddenly feel like they need to spend $3k to pursue whatever their new passion is.

> photography, wood working, grease monkey, cycling, gun collecting, antiquing, recreational substances

Yacht owner says ‘hold my beer’.

I can think of dozens. Running, dance, knitting, painting, woodworking (you can go very far for much less than $3k), archery, chess, board games, drawing, painting, brewing, darts, cycling, etc. etc.

Obviously you can spend pretty much any amount of money on those if you want (if you are "serious" about it) but you don't have to and most people don't. Also he said this $3k expenditure wasn't for serious work.

It’s a doable common hobby for middle class Americans. I grew up in a rural area with a dirt airstrip and everyone owned planes- even people that could barely afford a reliable used car. You can sometimes find something like an old Cessna for about $20k, and if you’re willing to do “experimental” planes that you fix yourself, sometimes just a few $k. Like anything, if you’re an insider in the community you can get good deals, sometimes even free from friends that age out, etc.

Many universities in rural areas have student clubs that offer lessons and rent club owned planes for cheap.

Some of those, like horses, are 1% hobbies. But many of the others can be done very affordably. Buying used equipment, learning from YouTube and online resources, starting small and scaling gradually make most of those hobbies accessible at a fraction of the cost.

Fiberglass sailboats last forever and the hobby is dying as people age out of it. I’m in the sailing community and get offered nice free boats in usable condition every year, but already have 2 so refuse any more. This year alone I’ve turned down both a 40ft and a 23ft free boats from 80-90 year old friends that aged out. Parts are expensive, but if you can do repairs yourself, you can absolutely own a pretty nice sailboat for about what it costs for a new apple laptop. I paid $1800 at auction for my most recent sailboat and it is only 7 years old, and needed nothing. Did an overnight trip on it recently.

I want to find a way to revive the hobby by showing younger people short on money that they can get into sailing for less than they already spend on much less rewarding stuff like app subscriptions and smartphones.

> Most hobbies are a lot cheaper.

Sure, but I did specify expensive hobbies.

Besides programming, my hobbies are writing stories, writing and recording songs, drawing, and painting. None of them needs to cost anywhere near $3000. Any of them can cost as much as you want.

Take the music hobby as an example. I have several expensive guitars now, but in the first 20 years of that hobby I probably spent under $1000 on guitars and related gear the entire time.

Running. You only need good shoes, really. Words from coworker running marathons.

It's sad that more countries outside of North America haven't actively developed their general aviation industries. It's never going to be cheap (or safe) but there's no good reason to impose the high taxes and regulatory constraints that keep it should be out of reach from regular upper-middle class people in many countries.

The cycling industry does a hard work making sure people think they need expensive bicycles but you can perfectly enjoycycling as a hobby without spending a fortune on it.

And in contradiction to computers, a bicycle from 40 years ago still does the same job as it did at the time, there is no software making it incompatible and it doesn't feel slower than the more modern stuff. All you need is a set of brake pads, cables, tires, chain and cassette every once in a while. All these consumables are fairly cheap if you aren't chasing the newest/highest end tech and stick to 2x9 / 2x10 speed transmissions.

> even people that could barely afford a reliable used car. You can sometimes find something like an old Cessna for about $20k,

Not sure what you call a "reliable used car". My low mileage for its age 2006 Mercedes B200 costed me 5.5k€ for instance. A car doesn't have to cost a lot to be reliable.

Around me $20k is an expensive price for a car and most people buy second hand +20y old cars they buy for less than 5k€.

Cultural attitudes about that vary a lot by locale I think. That is not how most American consumers think, at least where I live… people largely consider older cars, especially German ones to be too unreliable to count on and they are (wrongly) believed to be so expensive to maintain that it will cost more than a new car- so they're categorically ruled out. Even people that can barely afford food or housing will often take out a loan for a new or nearly new car under the idea that they won’t get to work consistently otherwise.

I am also into older cars and can get a reliable car for a few hundred dollars, but I would never be able to convince anyone else I know that it is an option. So yea, you can get a reliable car for a lot less than a cheap airplane only if you don’t have some irrational bias against older cars.

A lot of people fly. It's pretty common to be a fractional owner in a relatively inexpensive airplane and use it one day a week or some such.

You could say the same about computing as a hobby. Maybe that’s your point, hard for me to tell. I always compare it as a hobby to golf or hockey- both of which are common where I come from and pretty pricey hobbies.