Yes, prices have gone down over the years, but still unaffordable by people who can afford less.

Don't get me wrong, MacOS graphics, aesthetics, GUI, are awesome and I like its consistency but there are cons, too.

They typically have a higher upfront cost, limited upgrades, fewer ports/software options, repair challenges.

For comparisons, I purchased an Acer Helios 300, three or four years with the following specs:

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 Memory: 16 GB RAM Storage: 512 GB SSD Display: 15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS ComfyView Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 20xx.

I upgraded the machine's drives, to three, run Windows on the 500GB SSD drive, Linux on a 2TB M.2 drive and have a 4TB storage drive.

This is not something that I could do on a MacOS without a significant price upgrade. As such, I would say that MacOS is restrictive as far as hardware upgrade, and price. It's just Eye Candy for most people.

Still lots of cash, versus a 400 euro laptop, which is what many regular people end up buying.

There is a reason so many European operators have contract offers for TV or Internet packages, where customers get Apple gear "for free", naturally with a several years bound contracts.

Before memory prices skyrocketed, you could buy a 8c/16t Ryzen laptop and max it out with 64GB of memory and 2TB+ of disk space for less than $500.

Did that with the HP Dev One a few years ago, just did it again with a replacement sans memory that I already have.

You can get a dell laptop for like $200.

Ha, I have nothing on my machine that anyone would want. Yes, my life is that boring. So no, I keep nothing of importance in the drives, just old memories.

Out of the box, I've experienced less spyware-related issues with Linux. I have enabled UFW, installed ClamAV, closed or blocked communication with some ports. But for the most part, I've not had the same problems that had caused system and browser infections. If anything, the badly designed hardware of the machines and systems that I've built tend to cause the problems, for the most part, not to mention my own stupidity. If I do begin to experience, spy or adware-related issues, I suppose I could look into something like this: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole

Though if things got to the point where I'd need more protection, I'd think about the following:

-Keep system and software updated. -Enable firewall (e.g., UFW). -Use strong passwords and MFA. -Install from trusted sources only. -Encrypt disks (e.g., LUKS). -Use SELinux or AppArmor. -Sandbox apps with Flatpak/Wayland. -Install antivirus like ClamAV. -Disable unnecessary services. -Monitor logs and use tools like OpenSnitch. -Switch to CubesOS (qubes-os.org) but I'm not that paranoid, yet :)

I'm just not too tech savvy, but honestly if anyone had enough knowledge, they'd probably could get into my system. That being said, though I consider Linux to be more secure than Windows, no system is 100% secure, in my view.

Hah, good one

That unfortunately is true, for the most part. Whether this is due to financial reasons or for lack of engineering best practices, I can't say. All I can say is that, switching to Linux has led to significantly less cost, technical or spyware issues, not counting the issues which I created out of ignorance.