Why are there so many Mac users?

One of the reasons often given for buying a PC over a Mac is that PC's are cheaper. That certainly looks as if its true if you look only at the initial price for the boxes.

For years I managed end-user technology for an organization of 300 people, most using PC's because a critical business application was PC only, and the rest on Macs. I was required to establish the total cost of ownership for everything we bought. By the time you added support costs into the equation the Macs were substantially cheaper.

At the same time, if all you want to do is send email and browse the Web a cheap PC will certainly do that perfectly well. And if low cost really is the most important factor a $300 netbook and a free copy of Linux might be an even better solution than a Windows box.

Mac OSX is based on "Free BSD" (Berkley Software Distribution) that derived from Unix. It is even more stable than Unix for the following reason (quote from Wikipedia):

"FreeBSD is a complete operating system. The kernel, device drivers and all of the userland utilities, such as the shell, are held in the same source code revision tracking tree, whereas with Linux distributions, the kernel, userland utilities and applications are developed separately, then packaged together in various ways by others."

MacMini 2008 sees full 4GB of memory. That's what I have (Corsair low latency memeory)

If EAC is the reason to stay with PC then there is software for Mac called MAX (free I believe) that not only does it better (CDParanoia algoritm with option "do not skip") but also translates any format to any format and downloads covers (read about CDParanoia in Wikipedia).
It can take Metadata from Itunes and output result to Itunes.

Third by most credible sources the MAC platform is not more reliable than a PC. From a hardware standpoint there is nothing in it. The data is messy enough that a meaningful conclusion is frankly difficult. Bottom line on reliability is that a good PC and MAC will be about the same from a reliability standpoint. MAC should be better IMO as they not only get a premium price but have no off brands crudding up their reputation.

With due respect - In my experience, the experience of virtually everyone I know who has extensive experience with both platforms including many who write code exclusively for PC, and several who work at the Death Star across the water from me on the Redmond campus...your experience, in this statement, is entirely contrary to what any of these folks have to say, as well as my own experience. As far as the hardware is concerned - with the better PC's I might agree with you. As far as the software/platform is concerned, especially the current OS for each platform, I would completely disagree. The Mac platform is FAR FAR more stable than any Windows platform. Given an average user, with no other concerns other than ease of use, reliability and stability, setup, peripheral interface setup, integration of peripheral hardware as well as ease and stability of use of those peripherals, MAC is a universe away from PC...IMHO. I don't know what "credible resources", or what "data" you are referring to, but real-world experience, as you can very plainly see from the ratio of posts above confirming this, speaks something entirely different than what you seem to suggest. How much time have you spent using a MAC platform? I've been using MAC's since the early 90's for work, and PC's only peripherally for otherwise unavailable software, or troubleshooting other family members PC problems. Back then I would have concurred that the two were much closer in terms of stability. Since around MAC OS10.x I couldn't disagree more. I cannot even recall the last time my computer crashed or that I lost any important data, and I rely on my computer (MAC) for my career. I've never once had a computer virus or a worm on any MAC, ever. That said, I've heard good thingas about the new Windows platform (is it 7?). After Vista, you couldn't possibly do anything but improve on things. Wait a minute, we're talking about Microsoft!

Let me give you example how bad Windows is. Every time new program brings new version of certain DLL (dynamic link library) older programs might stop working because it has the same name and new DLL was not fully tested with existing programs or older programs depended on "bugs" in DLL. Even if DLL is in separate (program) directory things might go wrong when path changes. I had 5 different versions of the same DLL in different location with the same name. Apple's solution is simple - gives files different names. I'm using my Mac Mini for over a year without single crash and without antivirus software. The only viruses for Mac, as far as I know, are viruses for Windows applications like Office that Mac executes in "sandboxes" where they cannot get outside.

As for ease of use - I bought big book on MAC OSX and never opened it - it is that easy. Now I'm sorry that I didn't switch earlier and that I have to use Windows at work (where every single day stupid Windows installs the same update because it cannot recognize that it is already installed).

I am a hard core PC guy since the 1st IBM AT. Macs are, a, were better, until windows 7. Now PC's are.... close.