Ron,
You forgot to mention that the Apple Cafe' serves coffee with a "Kool-Aid" after-taste, that leaves you wanting to express your "individuality" by joining the ever-so-chic, "in" crowd.

Great post Ron.
To continue the metaphor:
Windows coffee machines are everywhere, indeed almost every business might have one ranging from the tiniest set-up in a fridge or cash dispenser to running factories or transport hubs. Why they need a coffee machine to run a fridge is a source of much glee in the Windows cafe - hey, it's my job right?
Linux cafes are very common but often hidden away and their coffee machines are almost always found in smaller numbers but oddly, they are often needed to keep the Windows coffee machines running and that is a source of much glee in the Linux cafe.
Apple cafes are only found in pricier neighbourhoods but there are a surprising number of their coffee machines in private hands with a valuable secondhand market.
The Windows cafe will have hordes of overworked staff who must have many skills born out of necessity because every stage of the coffee experience is likely to randomly break at some stage. This even extends to opening the front door where the key, bafflingly, might not fit from one day to the next. Employment chances are high at the Windows cafe.
The Linux and Apple cafe's by comparison are efficiently run by very few staff tho' the Apple staff have an annoying habit of smiling at you just for entering the premises.
The Windows coffee machine will accept coffee from any source so long as you grind it using a standard container holder. The coffee is therefore of varying standards only occasionally rising above the normal bland taste.
Linux coffee is also sourced very widely but has a very smooth taste no matter what. The coffee machine looks very Heath Robinson but runs all day without problem.
Apple coffee is sourced from only select growers and must be sold through to the cafes by the parent company. This means of course shockingly high prices but the quality is equally astonishing. Indeed the coffee is known to induce a state of bliss such that the other cafes think they must be putting something in the coffee.
Windows cafe drinkers rarely visit the Apple cafe, saying the coffee is way too expensive and it's not necessary to have such modern furniture - a chair is just a chair right?
Linux coffee drinkers are generally less discerning and will willingly use anybody's premises to drink their homebrew. They are generally appreciative of Apple coffee but think their coffee is just as good since it can generally be brewed using Apple machines - the flavour is different that's all.
Apple coffee drinkers will visit Windows cafes if they really have to and resent hugely the fact that sometimes there is no alternative. They will drink Linux coffee but generally consider the flavour to be a bit insipid compared to their own. They appreciate the cheapness but hey, you get what you pay for right?
Fun and fascinating and much better than the usual car comparisons.

whoops see below \/

The linux cafe would have so many kinds of coffee it would be overwhelming. The coffee would be free but you would have to pay for the cups. The choice of cups while well made are also overwhelming.The windows cafe would sell only one kind of coffee. the coffee is inexpensive if you buy it in their oem cup but if you want to buy coffee alone the price can be steep. Their cups are know for having holes in them and you end up paying hidden costs in medical bills from a virus you caught from the coffee. The mac cafe would also sell only one kind of coffee. It would be more expensive than any other coffee but would come in shiny cups that are also well made that "peacocks" like to brandish.

I not only grind my own coffee, I roast it. I design roast curves (changes in temperature over time) customized to bring out the best in my coffee, whether it is a selected lot of astonishingly fragrant, high-grown Kenyan roasted just short of city-plus or a lightly city-roasted, subtle, Mandarin/tangerine fragranced Papua New Guinea.

My computer: A Mac, of course.

Please don't feed the troll.

I think it's great how people have continued to carry the metaphor out in your own ways. Thanks so much for all the wonderful, thoughtful comments. Fantastic.

Ron

I'm sure you guys noticed that there's an iPhone OS lounge in the OS X cafe.
I've spent some time in there over the past year. The coffee is decently priced and usually tastes real good. There's almost 100,000 flavors to choose from. The mug costs you an arm and a leg, but it looks really nice.
However, the lid of the mug is soldered shut, and you only have a straw through which you're allowed to drink pre-approved coffee, but can't pour anything in. The cafe owners have a secret way of refilling your mug for you. You're only allowed to use the mug with coffee supplied by the cafe owners. They get the beans from various plantations, that's true, but the rates aren't really fair trade, and many producers get turned down because their coffee smells to much like the house blend the cafe owners are making.
Every now and then, the statue of Lord Steve issues a keynote address or plays a clever commercial telling people what flavor of coffee they should like. Many patrons instantly switch to the new flavor.

They say that if you pry off the floorboards in the OS X cafe, you'll find that the solid concrete foundation underneath is actually an old UNIX/Linux cafe, and that the shiny plastic OS X floors on top wouldn't really be able to last without that foundation. Some of the patrons have actually completely removed the floorboards in a corner of the OS X cafe, and installed a few Linux .deb coffee machines straight on the UNIX foundation. We also set up a small workshop in that corner, and some really skillful guys have managed to cut off the soldiered iphone OS cup lid, and now we can actually see what's inside the cup, clean it when necessary, pour our coffee ourselves, and enjoy any type of coffee we want.
Most of the patrons in the shiny part of the building don't know about our corner, or refuse to acknowledge it. They're ok with drinking the mystery coffee served to them in the locked cups, and never knowing that there's more out there. Steve gets angry when he hears about us. One of our guys once spray-painted a pineapple on Steve's statue, just to **** him off :-)

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http://www.linuxcaffe.ca/
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