> do with whether people who DO NOT WANT WINDOWS AND DOS are paying
> those costs anyway...
It is pretty obvious that if you get DOS and Windows with your machine part
of the cost of the machine pays for them.
But we pay for lots of features we don't want. I look at the back of my
machine and I have VGA, serial, and parallel ports that I do not use. I also
have an extra electrical connector and a card cage lock. I do not need these
features, but I know if I called the vendor and asked them to sell me a machine without them they would laugh.
This is not limited to my computer. My stereo receiver has video, tape, and phonograph, and alternate set of speaker connectors. I don't use any
of them. Despite the additional features, the the price was competitive for the
features I did want.
You used to be able to go into your automobile dealership and order a car with the exact set of options you wanted. The Japanese built cars with a limited number of options packages. It allowed them to mass produce their cars at greatly reduced cost (and better quality).
Mass production makes products cheaper. The vendor determines what set of
features at what prices satisfies the greatest number of their customers.
Find a product with the features you like and decide if the price is reasonable
for those features and don't worry about what else you are getting.
