The Difference Between Prosumer and Professional

The new Mac Pro is a good reminder of the capabilities, and cost, of professional hardware.

In a time when most of the attention in computing has been around miniaturization and portability, the average user—via a smartphone, iPad, or laptop—have had their computing needs met with standard-issue consumer electronic products for years. Electronic device upgrade cycles have all plateaued, with the previously indefatigable smartphone's growth finally stalling last year^[1]. In response, recent iterations to computing hardware have necessarily focused on luxury affordances and somewhat extraneous features.

In stark contrast, the Mac has become a more specialized computing platform, most often used in professional and academic settings where complex software and inputs^[2] are still required. And at the top is this new Mac Pro: a computing beast that features server-grade multi-core processors and memory, massive amounts of blazingly fast storage, enough data bandwidth and physical space for expandability, and a specially-designed case to accommodate airflow across a set of extremely powerful and power-hungry and hot components. The elitism is further compounded by an even more extravagant "Pro Display" computer monitor, and made complete with a this-is-not-The-Onion separate Pro Stand, priced for ridicule.

Stand aside, the specs and abilities of the Mac Pro do highlight the difference in hardware tailor-made for professional use to that of the average consumer, and even that of the so-called prosumer.

The term was used a couple of years back mostly in talking about cameras targeted towards photography hobbyists, who didn't take photos for a living^[3] but still demand quality and equipment beyond that of standard camera lineups. These new cameras had features handed down from their more professional brethren to justify their 2× price tags, though I suspect a substantial part of the appeal is selling the idea of buying the tools to make a hobby into a career possible. Since then, the idea has spread to other gadgetry:

• Apple's MacBook and iPad Pros, with the former getting called out for its deficiencies for professional use in its most recent iteration
• Audio equipment, particularly higher-end earphones and headphones
• Television sets, where some of the high-end features include globs of video signal processing that's the opposite of what professionals would actually want out of their monitors
• At-home coffee and espresso machines

From the manufacturer's standpoint, there's plenty to like about this segment of customers: it's a bigger market than the purely professional analog, willing to pay a bit more than the average customer^[4], ideally using tech that was already developed and subsidized by the highest-end professional products.

Those professional products, though, still stand worlds apart. These are the cameras that can take and buffer hundreds of photos, in-ear monitors with custom audio calibrations, and computer monitors with built-in hardware to keep its colors accurate. These features are so niche that they only make sense as a part of the cost of running a business, where that business requires a quality level a step beyond what a consumer—or prosumer—is able to accomplish with slightly less sophisticated hardware.

And as the Mac Pro demonstrates, that 10–20% of additional quality can easily run at 3–4× the price.