For many people, Apple offered laptops that they felt checked the right boxes for their needs and now they don’t. Whenever Apple makes a change to the operating system people come out of the wood works to chip in their 2 cents about how much worse everything is now and how much better it all used to be back when they first fell in love with the Mac.

Apple made it marginally more difficult for power users to install software they want on their computer so that must be an indication of their move to walling off the software ecosystem on the mac! It’s a one time one extra step for something that is a relative rarity, running unsigned applications. Unless all you do all day is download and run unsigned .dmg files from github, this seems like a remarkably rare occurrence that you have to address.

MacOS now defaults to being rootless! System Integrity Protection clearly exists to restrict me from running any code I want on MY COMPUTER! Well, except that it can be turned off by anyone who knows and cares to do so (i.e. the power user) while retaining the security benefits that it gives to the vast majority of users that don’t need the functionality it provides.

Nearly any move apple has made that at a cursory glance looks to be being made to close off the Mac software ecosystem hasn’t actually stopped people from running arbitrary code on the OS. It’s some weird sense of entitlement that power users seem to have and they get indignant that they have to change their behavior at all.

I remember when I first tried linux from Windows and the whole idea of having to sudo to install software made me upset. I’m the administrator! I shouldn’t have to put in a password anytime I want to install new software! Why does it make me do this when this account is an admin?! It was indignant and it was also a remarkably stupid take from someone who had more hubris than wisdom.

Whether people acknowledge it or not, they’re always making compromises when it comes to their computers. It’s easy to be heavily critical of the things that you experience on a day to day basis. Little bugs that are really starting to piss you off. The software making you jump through some extra hoop just to do what you want it to. It’s less easy to see the major downsides of the “other side” if you’re not there. The author of this article seems defeated and stuck between a rock and hard place. On the one hand he gets the Mac with its limited expandability, limited hardware options, and high prices. On the other hand he has a linux box with unremarkable to bad UX but with the ability to outfit it with (relatively) cheap and powerful commodity hardware.

Perhaps the vast majority of disillusioned Mac users are simply unaware of all the controversies and issues that have cropped up in PC land. They’re unable to see over those high walls and simply assume it’s better on the outside. As someone that regularly uses Linux, Windows, and MacOS, I can assure you that each of them have things that absolutely delight me and then another set of things that makes me want to smash my computer on the ground and give up on them entirely.

You may find some relief to the issues you have now. I guarantee you will just be replacing them with something else, though.