Please. Whatever strawman you are trying to construct is missing the point.
I do not buy Apple products as a status symbol. I buy them because they work. I won't even say the products are good, there are a lot of things I'd like to see change. But they are the best thing on the market for getting my work done.
My laptop and phone are my hammer and workbench. The iPhone and MacBook are far and away the best product for the work I do, which is not iOS or MacOS development. They're simply the best general computing solution on the market right now.
Firstly, you are not the representative sample, I can testify that in much of russia they are definately a status symbol and most of their customers are not developers. My sample size is still not great, but at least i am not talking about myself.
Secondly, this narrow-minded attitude is reflected in you calling MacBook the best general computing solution. There are a large variety of requirements for general computing solution, the most common ones that macbook can't satisfy are cost and gaming performance. Indeed no one product can satisfy them.
I never said all Apple users don't know what they are getting into. There must be other users who want Apple to have full control over its devices. If it works great for them then there's no issue.
