Legitimacy is not found in all of the brands that support community. For example, it is not found in the Macintosh community. No Mac users complain about those who are using the brand for the wrong reasons. We offer four possibilities as to why this is the case. First, Macintoshes were not very trendy at the time these data were collected. Second, it could be a consequence of necessity. Macintosh has a very low market share, and community members express a great deal of concern about its possible disappearance from the marketplace altogether. The community can not stand to lose many more members, legitimate or not. So, perhaps when a brand’s very existence is threatened, the right‐reason test may not be quite so severe. The third possibility is that a test of legitimacy would violate the Mac community’s democratic ethos. If the Mac community is anything, according to its members, it is democratic. Fourth, because the Mac community is the most cohesive of the three, there may simply be no room for tests of legitimacy. Mac community members have a strong moral certainty, feeling that they are doing the right thing by resisting the Microsoft tide. It was, at the time of data collection, the most threatened of the three brands.