Comment by compounding_it

My personal experience with using macOS (m1 2020-) Windows 10 (2018-2020) and Linux (for the last 16-17 years on off) -

If you want to do basic stuff like browsing streaming learning video calls etc, get a non Linux computer with decent specs with some headroom. These operating systems are for people who just want to use that ecosystem and not need to manage anything themselves. Battery life is exceptional. Most people I know need a one or two step process to do things (like backup photos contacts documents etc) and Apple google Microsoft offer you that. It’s not perfect but it’s easy to manage. People really have gotten used to someone managing it for them and these things do fine in that regard. It’s better than people having 5 hard drives with photos and misplacing them imo. I’ve had people in 2000s connect drives to my computers and find private pictures and contacts and files etc I need not be having access to. iCloud and Google Photos offer you that peace of mind. With 2FA you’d rather lose it all than fall into the wrong hands. People have all kinds of stuff on their phones and computers that should not leave their computers and accounts. Imagine having your kids classmates find your intimate pictures on some drive they used to copy something your kid gave them. All this has reduced with cloud managed services with activation locks and 2FA and password mangers built into them. Yes they can lock you out one day, but it’s better than people having access to it.

If you are serious about your personal computer, switch to Linux before you start hating those companies. You are not the target audience anymore and you shouldn’t be disappointed about it.

I use Linux for most things, macOS for streaming and surfing the web (private relay and 4k native works great on M1) and windows when I have to deal with others having windows only accounting software sometime.