And even though it does cost more at first, it lasts a lot longer and gets lots more free OS updates that most other ones.
More free OS updates? You can upgrade your PC from Windows 7 to 10 for free (even to 11 if you have TPM2). That will be decades of free updates and upgrades.
Not to mention Linux, FreeBSD, and the like.
Call me crazy, but I don’t see people rocking laptops from 2008 until this date, I have seen people using Macs from that day using recent macOS versions (with OCLP) and some hardware tweaks like upgrading the RAM or SSD if needed, or replacing the battery.
Heck my Mac is from 2014 and it runs fairly fine.
I just finally broke the charging port on my 2015 MBP. Otherwise, I’d still be using it.
True, in that order. Win 7, then 10, which almost doesn’t run because of hardware requirements, then all those Linux distros. You will be busy with installing and configuring these for decades, because it mostly doesn’t just work.
But it’s free, if you value your time to nothing.