All those decals are there on your windows pc for the same reason they are there on the racing cars. To subsidize the cost of the machine. You got your windows computer for $500. How much was your mac?<p>If I ever become obscenely wealthy, I'm going to buy a NASCAR team 100% myself. My car will be all white and on the hood, in large friendly black letters (Helvetica no doubt), it will say <i>"Racecar"</i>. That ought to drive those red-staters nuts.
I like all that crap. It makes me feel smug as I scratch off the logos, remove the decals, and erase the stock OS.<p>If it was just a blank machine with nothing on it, I wouldn't get that feeling.<p>I do feel sorry for someone that thinks the default install on their laptop is suitable for actual use, however. Sometimes these techie jokes go a little too far...
The problem with PCs is not the existence of cheapo systems like this, but the absence of machines that compete with the Mac for industrial design and user experience. It doesn't seem to be possible to buy a PC that isn't butt-ugly and comes loaded with crapware, regardless of how much you're willing to pay.<p>My theory is that when Apple builds a computer, they know they're going to sell millions of a particular model, so it's worth spending the time to build it properly. PC makers have higher volume, but it's spread across thirty models with a dozen variants each, updated yearly, so they can't waste time making any of them particularly good.