Credit where credit is due, Apple sold (and is still selling) digital music DRM free. If I recall, they were the first legit store to offer that, which allowed/forced Amazon and others to follow suit.

I imagine they were able to pull this off because the iPod gave them a lot of leverage with the studios, and those studios were also desperate to curb piracy. If only they could have gotten the same deal with movie and television studios…

It’s not like Apple sells hardware that you have to pay for softupdates to unlock functionality (except for updated WiFi that one time over a decade ago, but that was a GAAP accounting issue, IIRC).

I’m not a fan of how unserviceable the hardware is (especially coming from the days of PowerBooks and the first decade of MacBooks we hear everything was user upgradable/replacable. But I am a fan of having a silent, super fast computer with all day battery.

As far as I know, the copycats copied the worst parts of Apple without realizing they need to make pleasant to use, secure, private systems first.