[black_puppydog]

Personally I'd be very much more fine with them honestly stating: you get a compute resource, don't expect to control it, pay a monthly fee.

Would I sign up for that? Certainly not. But if that sounds unattractive, then they should just accept that when you sell something and the buyer owns it, you don't control over anymore.

I keep pushing this distinction in DRM contexts, too. It's kinda my personal soapbox. :)

[zepto]

The issue I have with this, is that anyone who is technical enough to install an operating system from source, must necessarily have an understanding what hardware they will be able to install it on. I’m curious if you have ever done this.

No such person would have any illusion about what Mac hardware they could use.

Everyone else, reasonably expects Apple to take care of the OS for them. Indeed that is arguably the selling point and key differentiator of the Mac.

Nobody is misled.

See elsewhere where I respond to the distinction you are making about ownership: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25093873