What "walled garden"? The Mac-only apps aside, what's that that you couldn't get on Windows (and most even on Linux), either the same thing, or a zero-switch-cost subscription (it's not like you need to rebuy something to go from Music to Spotify for exampe).
iCloud? You can use Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever MS calls theirs.
Apple Music? Pretty sure it plays at both.
Most major apps are cross platform (Adobe, Microsoft and such), or Electron based.
Syncing with your iPhone? You can do that from Windows and Linux as well. Airpods? Work with Android and Windows too.
With this bad faith line of reasoning that ignores user defaults, ecosystem ties and switching friction, Windows was also never a monopoly because companies and users could just switch to Mac or Linux whenever they wanted.
>How many Ukrainians can find Iowa or Missouri on the map?
> With this bad faith line of reasoning that ignores user defaults, ecosystem ties and switching friction, Windows was also never a monopoly because companies and users could just switch to Mac or Linux whenever they wanted.
This bad faith line of reasoning ignores how viable Mac or Linux actually were as consumer devices at the time Microsoft had a monopoly.
>How many Ukrainians can find Iowa or Missouri on the map?
Their country doesn't make decisions about American on their behalf (or even at all), so they don't have a moral obligation as citizens to. And Iowa and Missouri are mere states, and not even very interesting ones at that.
My point is that the US is a huge country and American education prioritizes learning where all 50 states are, since that's going to be a thousand times more relevant to any American in the span of their lifetime. So it's not surprising that the average American may not know where the fuck Estonia is, but they can tell you where Rhode Island is – and the reverse is true for the average European.
Being able to point something out on a map is a metric that means nothing. That is my point.
You didn't read what I said. I said MacOS IS a monopoly in the Apple ecosystem.
Apple users dissatisfied with how MacOS is changing, as the one I was replying to, have nothing else to switch to without uprooting themselves out of the Apple ecosystem altogether, which most don't do but just put up with it.
I would (grudgingly) accept this argument for iOS, but for Mac OS it doesn't make any sense.