[mercer]

This illustrates pretty well one of the main reasons I switched to Apple years ago: I know what I'm getting and at least until keyboard-gate it did "just work".

While it's true that I could get better-specced laptop, phone, bluetooth earbuds, and so one, I consistently run into two issues that I just don't have with Apple: 1) there's almost always something subpar about the product, that reviews didn't warn me against, and/or 2) I hate having to carefully select from a dizzying array of inter- and intra-company options, where often companies actively game the system (reviews) or try to up-sell.

It's honestly somewhat astonishing how consistently I run into these issues when I buy a non-apple product, in particular laptops.

Now of course being 'in' the ecosystem already also has a ton of benefits, and of course I can afford being a little less price-conscious. But it's absolutely not the case that I go for Apple because it's cool. Or because they market well.