[whodidntante]

It is very simple:

I have multiple Chromebooks and an extra monitor, and use Google for files, email, photos. I can grab my cheap Chromebook and throw it into my backpack, don't bother with a case. I have learned to live without using installed apps.

I have a couple of beelink boxes at home that I stash in the corner of a room, connected to my home wireless. I use Crostini to remote into these boxes to do any development. I treat these boxes the same way I treat my Chromebook - disposable. I have scripts that will reconstitute my dev environment from GitHub and my backups.

If I trash a chromebook, I grab or buy a new one. I can do pretty much anything (except dev work) from my phone if needed. If I trash a dev server, I use another one. I also have some virtual machines at Hetzner. I keep my backups there, as well as any apps I want public.

My only concern is my Google dependence. That is the trade-off for being 100% cloud based and treating my devices as disposable.

[pierreortega]

you can do the same with mac os and also have a great user experience; perhaps not the cheap replacement but doesn't feel right optimizing for replacement given that my devices last around 5 years anyway

[BakeInBeens]

The first party integration is the difference. You won't have your files and photos instantly there when you login and you'll still have to download and setup those apps.

[prepend]

Yes, you will.

MacOS has idrive and iphoto with all your files in the cloud.

If I walk over to your mac and log in with my appleid, I have all my stuff instantaneously.

I work across a bunch of machines (all macos) and all my stuff syncs across them pretty seamlessly.

Costs way more than chromebooks, though.