[c256]

There are “wall into a store” devices at far less than MacBook/XPS/X1 prices that have good performance, stellar battery life, good displays, and run the web’s default browser alongside Android apps and almost all Linux apps (direct USB access and audio is tricky, but the Android development kit is directly supported).

It’s true that after some number of years, you switch the hardware to a different OS, including a 3rd party supported ChromeOS system or a variety of Linux distributions.

I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but I will say that it’s at least in the same class of consideration as “you could buy an old Thinkpad, and replace at least the hard drive, keyboard, display, and battery to get something similarly usable”.