I use GNOME daily on one of my laptops and I don’t agree at all. It has some surface-level similarities, but overall is more comparable to something like iPadOS or Samsung DeX when connected to an external screen+KB+mouse.

The global menubar is the biggest difference, but there’s also a pervasive difference in philosophy throughout the desktop; where macOS will have power user functionality tucked away in a menu or hidden behind a modifier key (progressive disclosure), GNOME will just remove the function altogether.

Pantheon is very similar, except dressed up in an (admittedly pretty) skeumorphic theme that reminds me of OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its charms, I use it after all, but it’s not a Mac OS analogue in any way.

Gnome is very different from Aqua.

I used Gnome daily for a really long time. Gnome 3 is actually pretty good these days but it took a while to get there.

Aqua is still pretty solid but some of the shine is starting to fade.

I have all the Apple Intelligence stuff turned off yet I got a pop up ad in the OS for “Image Playground”

Apple’s solution? Turn off Image Playground in Screen Time settings. Ridiculous.

Gnome's top bar isn't a global menu, though. It's completely different and IMO pretty much useless.

KDE has a global menu bar that works like the one in MacOS.

It's pretty hit or miss. And so far, for me, nothing comes close to topping Hyprland -- I'm perfectly happy without a global menu bar at the moment.

Kind of. Last I checked it’s broken under Wayland, and under X11 there’s a lot of apps that don’t populate it.

I'm using it under Wayland right now. Though you are right that there are apps that don't populate it.