>> So, why DO people buy Apple?
>> Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy.

This is why people buy Apple. They are badly mis-informed and repeat these same, tired arguments that have been shown over and over again to be wrong. Apple doesn't care about your privacy. In fact, they are some of the worst, and tends to make Google look like a saint for user privacy.

Apple tracks your surfing habits, purchases, location in real time, etc... just like Google. It's in Apple's privacy policies, all for ads, or as Apple likes to re-phrase as to 'offer you those personalized services'.

And when countries like China demanded that they need full access to online storage of every user whenever they wanted, Google deemed that their users privacy was not worth this so Android isn't available in China. Apple? They couldn't hand it over to China fast enough. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111754 Because screw customer privacy.

Then they decided that they will use AI to scan all your photo's on device to tattle to Apple if they feel it might be CSAM. They only backed down after the huge PR stink. Don't remember Microsoft or Google deciding to do this, since that would violate their users privacy of what they do on their devices.

Oh, and then there was the UK 'Online Safety Act' that requires you to upload and ID yourself to make sure you're an adult online. Google and Microsoft deemed to not run for this because, again, user privacy would be harmed by this and decided to wait to see if it would survive legal challanges. Apple? Again, who cares about user privacy, They already leaked that they were going full steam ahead for back in Feburary.

https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-ios-uk-age-verification-online-safety-act-screen

The web browser I also use has ad-blockers. And unlike Firefox, doesn't random freeze up.

Have you ever used Firefox on Android?

If you had, you'd know why people don't.

Most damage and need to repair of devices isn't with the manufacturing, it's the user. People drop, spill, step on, or generally damage things accidentally. This is where repairability really comes into play.

In my own experience in over 30 years is the same as yours, except they weren't Apple devices.

Reddit only posted a profit when they started to sell all of their users comments to AI companies. Those companies don't want to pay to recycle their own AI comments back into their AI, so Reddit needs help to make sure as much of the comments aren't bots.

And that only applies (in theory...) to US citizens. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply to non-citizens, which is what this issue is about.

And you answered the problem.

"Home computer users are here tomorrow."

They aren't going away. These companies can focus on the whales today secure in the knowledge that when the whales do die, they can just go back to relying on home computer users tomorrow. Home users can't go anywhere else, competitors aren't just going to pop up overnight and take away their business. And because of this, investors LOVE it.

The issue is that the companies that make RAM also need to report to their investors. So they have 2 options:

- Sell to the public and state "We made X profit this quarter"
Or
- Sell to the server market that will pay more to secure the RAM and state "We made X++ profit this quarter"

And when it's your job to make as much for their investors, which will you choose: to keep your job or be let go for someone else?

>It's a laptop formfactor. Apple has not to date shipped a laptop formfactor device with iOS

Those are called iPads, with the magic keyboard case. They've been around for years, over a decade.

>The phone maker who makes money off hardware, and not ads and surveillance, which inherently suck.

So, literally only Fairphone.

No, thats for learning about computers as a subject.

They need computers that aren't locked down "golden cages" that can do the basics but can ALSO do non-basic things for people to learn, adapt, and understand how to go beyond a few rigid rules.

Part of the issue is with those devices is they are locked down, and actively discourage trying anything "new" or "exploring". It's been well commented and stated that tablets and Apple computers are "golden cages", and when you raise a child in a "cage" that actively prevent them from trying to do anything out of the basic guidelines you can't expect them to become adults and suddenly think "outside" of a cage and it's limits.

So many of us here grew up with computers from a young age and didn't have these problems and self-imposed limits. But then again, we didn't have devices that actively fought against us from tinkering, trying, and learning new things.

Except this isnt about online games. Its why there is the mentioning of "certain games", because it only deals with certain games.

Its not dealing with if WoW suddenly goes offline, or FF14, or any other MMO. Those are online only games, and are strickly based on online gaming modes. They arent going to demand an offline mode or eternally run servers, or anything like that. Not even open sourcing the server code (there are sometimes legal issues with this, go see the whole WinAmp source code issue about why this can be an issue.)

The issue is more along the lines of if the Diablo servers stop running and you can no longer playing Diablo offline in single player mode that is already built into it. There is no reason that this should be tied into a suddenly dead server, and this is about making it sure that if they decide at some point to turn off the server, then at that point they need to remove the server check altogether. They arent saying they need to remove DRM either, it can just be a different form that isnt tied to a dead server.

I was hoping you'd actually read my post before you replied, but here we are.

I'll repeat it again, UPGRADES to Windows 7-8-10-11 were all free. Buying the whole OS isn't upgrading. Windows offers free OS upgrades, same as everyone else.

And Apple does deliberately require hardware upgrades and stops supporting video cards (NVIDIA), with OpenCore Legacy Patcher showing these aren't needed in order to upgrade.

And this was all based on the starting arguement of "By forcing your customers to upgrade by means of: Dark patterns, threats, coercion, arbitrary expiration dates, and on and on." There never was a point of "free OS upgrades" or not. That was something you added to distract from the original point.

Maybe you should look at the whole picture and not being a Apple apologist and claiming that even though Apple does the EXACT same thing, that they are somehow completely different.

PS, I use Linux, so no, I'm not a MS apologist.

When they are some of the longest supporters of hardware in the commerical space?

Yes.

Microsoft on average will support hardware for 10 years. macOS, iOS, and Android average 7 years. Only ChromeOS supports 10 years.