[chipotle_coyote]

It's possible. It's not impossible that if they'd just kept the hardware escape key and replaced the function keys with the Touch Bar it would have gotten a warmer reception; I think Apple really underestimated (a) how much of the MBP's loudest and most influential audience is comprised of developers or developer-adjacent techies, and (b) how many of those folks are really attached to their escape key. Personally I would be a lot happier with that -- in practice, I don't really miss the function keys and media keys, and I've actually used some of the Touch Bar functionality once in a while, but not having the escape key makes me angry and I'm not even a dedicated Vim user.

[scarface74]

I think techies overestimate their influence. The Mac’s revenue was the highest it’s ever been last quarter. The lack of an escape key didn’t hurt sells.

[chipotle_coyote]

Techies are a pretty big subset of MacBook Pro buyers, specifically, and that's the only line that has models in it with no escape key. The last quarter was the first one that the new MacBook Air was on sale -- the Air being one of Apple's most popular laptops and the one that had gone years without an update. That drove a lot of the sales that quarter. Were a lot of techies buying the Air? I don't know. But you know what the new Air has? An escape key. :)