No surprises here. Just like the lockdown on iPhone screen and part replacements, Macbooks suffer from the same Apple’s anti-repair and anti-consumer bullshit. Battery glued, ssd soldered in and can’t even swap parts with other official parts. 6000$ laptop and you don’t even own it.
They are a lifestyle brand and play on that to keep people trapped. People who buy Apple like the aesthetic of appearing wealthy. It’s classism through consumerism, even if the consumers don’t realise it.
Apple’s terrible privacy policy (yes, despite the word privacy appearing in the ads), atrocious right to repair stance, and aggressive software lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.
There was a purpose to buying Apple when they were the only player in the specific niche. Audio engineering is a great example of this. In the 90’s, Apple were really the only valid choice in a highly specialist field. Microsoft caught up in the 2000s, with Linux not too far behind in the 2010’s.
So nowadays, the limitations are effectively self-imposed. You can spend whatever money you want on a setup that will do whatever you need and the OS is a personal preference.
I don’t like Apple very much but it would be stupid to not admit that their new M1 and M2 SOCs aren’t great. Their battery efficiency far surpasses any from Intel or AMD and the performance is great.
I think MacOS looks stupid though, I mean, it looks like fucking Gnome.
I assume most people that buy Macs and iphones do it for their software and hardware, not because they want to appear wealthy. Like you said OS is a personal preference and some prefer MacOS and iOS.
Unfortunately most people don’t care.
And once you are locked-in, the barrier to get yourself out of it is often so high that it dissuades most people from even trying to get out. I moved from macOS to Linux last year, and even though I was only using a small portion of the Apple ecosystem (iCloud was the only thing I believe), it still took a lot of time as they are designed to make it difficult/time consuming to migrate. Not to mention the macOS/iOS only applications you might’ve ended up using, as cross-platform functionality was not top-of-mind when choosing. In my case, the notes app Bear was such an example.
The “people want to appear wealthy” thing makes no sense in 2023 when flagship android phones are the same price or more expensive. People, as much as the anti-apple people don’t want to admit it, buy iPhones because they’re damn good phones with the best app support, accessory support, best customer support, the best performance, etc.
People buy Macs because they last forever and, especially now with the M chips, they are best in market performance and battery wise.