you may disagree with the OP's choice of leaving the ecosystem but what is your opinion of what he wrote about, about upselling and locking people in?
You didn't ask me, but I'll answer. I agree, the OP wrote a LOT but it boils down to, 'I'm going cheaper.' Fair enough. And people like to get upset about the upsell like it's something created by Apple, but have you bought a car? or anything else with yearly new products with options? Apple is a for profit company that grows by bringing out new products. They invest a lot into research, research costs a lot of money with no profit. People want to buy cheap today and not fund tomorrow. That's not a formula for growth, it's a fire sale. My mother taught me , Quality costs. I dont expect something for next to nothing. When I walk into a car dealer, I dont ask them to show me their cheapest model and then moan about upgrades. I ask to see the top of the line for that particular model then decide what features I DON'T need... and then evaluate the model with options that have value to me. And thats exactly what I do with Apple's products. I dont say I won't buy what I want, typically 16 gb RAM and 1 TB storage because it costs much more than a base model. I say I can afford that and buy it. I know I am funding Apple's research.
I am not locked in. That implies no choice. I have the same choice as the OP, to go cheap. But cheap is often short sighted. Cheap often means it doesn't last as long, or you have to put in more work (hello Ikea), or in some cases, like windows all of the above and derriere ugly. No thanks. In a website where people get upset about fingerprints, I am not being shallow to point out windows is ugly and that matters to me.
Nor do I expect Apple to make life easier for me if I use an android phone by bringing it in to the 'garden.' Bottom line is Apple succeeds in tight hardware and software integration because they can control the variables. In MR there are a lot of armchair engineers that wave their hands at what should be 'easy', but if it was so easy to integrate PC's, Android Phones, and Android tablets, why isn't Android and microsoft doing it already themselves? answer is, too many variables. I know those companies have made some attempts, but it's not just the same. So I dont expect Apple to do what those companies cannot. We aren't just talking about green or blue chat bubbles here.
I am not uninformed, actually for work I am given 2 or 3 start of the art PCs per year to analyze. Sure look at those specs, look at those prices, but they just don't work as well. balance is everything. Recently though a 16 inch laptop crossed my desk that was interesting, all aluminum body, oled display, decent intel processor, and I admit, I loved that display, after tweaking it to a realistic color palette. It was a MacBook Pro want to be. With soldered on ram (16gb). Not upgradable. and an apple like price of $2000. But those fans are damn noisy all the time for even the simplest of tasks. battery life sucks. and then there is windows. That OLED screen is nice, and tempting, but not worth the pain of the rest of it. Not for me.
So yes. Quality costs. Apple is a for profit company that survives through rapid growth and evolving products. Research has to be funded. I buy what I need and don't look back. I just don't go cheap. Costs too much in the long run and the journey is no where near as fun. Life is too short to struggle with the PC world for me.
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