[ansgri]

I see replacing products with services as something that limits your ability to live the way you'd like.

Good phrasing. Although I do see it as a reliability problem (it is more so if you live in a less technically developed country with not-that-good foreign relation), the inability to have it my way has more immediate impact. The most visible thing is software UIs. If I had bought a product for a precise combination of its hardware and software features, it should be possible to keep away any cardinal redesigns. I still remember the auto-update from Android 2.7 to 3.x (or was it 4?) on my Samsung Galaxy SII, which totally broke the user experience.

Same with websites: nowadays you just can't buy a desktop version of anything, that not only limits the possibility of offline use, but also forces you to deal with unwanted updates. The solution seems to be to use stuff made for boring business customers. Ironically, that makes Apple a viable choice — business customers use them too, around the world, and they cannot ignore them.