Everything is bundled, and you have to choose the bundle that works the best for you. For many people, that’s Apple devices.

I’ve owned Apple laptops for the last 10 years or so, because I find that they work for my needs. Do I wish they’d open source (or at least document) their non-standard hardware choices, so that their hardware would have easy Linux compatibility? Sure, that’d be nice.

But in the meantime, I like their trackpads, their audio hardware can’t be beat (at least on MacOS, I wish we could get this stuff working right in Linux), and I like their HiDPI displays, low-power CPUs/GPUs, and form factor. Yes, I have to trade off a lot of things to get here. But going with another device would involve other tradeoffs. So I think Apple is worth the tradeoffs for my laptops, not worth the tradeoffs for a phone (although every year I get more and more dissatisfied by the Android offerings).

When other consumers don’t weight the same tradeoffs the same way you do, it’s not because they’re “lemmings” or whatever.

I’m all for breaking up some of these bundles by law (requiring greater interoperability/repair, etc.). But until they do, consumers will need to make their decisions in the circumstances that exist, not the ones that they wish existed.