If ignoring the thing would work then people would do that. The problem is not that anti-consumer products exist along side pro-consumer products. It is that anti-consumer products out compete pro-consumer products to the point that all that remains (within reasons) are anti-consumer products.
There are market reasons for this behavior. Asymmetric information in markets (lemon markets), true cost obfuscation, hidden terms, platform capture, manipulations in form of anti-patterns, monopoly behavior, to just mention a few of the very large ones.
How would ignoring the ipad not have solved OP's problem?
They could have just replaced their old macbook with a new macbook.
Not that there's anything wrong with trying something new, IMO. But if you do so without doing any research, and it turns out to not be what you expected, there's nothing to complain about. Hopefully OP just returned the ipad and got a macbook upon realizing their mistake.
You seem to be suggesting something deceptive is going on here, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of that.
I would agree with you if computing devices were trivial aesthetic devices, instead of central to a lot of what we do.
I would agree with you if 1000 vendors of versatile computing tools put out 10,000 products with all kinds of uncorrelated options.
I would agree with you if even one vendor put out high-end quality, safe but ungated, customizable products for all form factors. (Safe out of the box, but all safeguards opt-out enabled.)
But neither wonderful extreme exists. Unfortunately, not even scaled down, bad caricatures, in a dark room, if you spend a mint, versions of that reality exist.
Instead, due to increasingly locked down devices, we are all left making tradeoffs we wish we didn’t have to make.
And not because guardrail opt-outs would be hard or costly to provide, but because manufacturers work hard to eliminate technically trivial opt-outs, or even any hero level effort opt-ours, and tell us they are doing this — for us!?!?
“We want you to be safe.” I don’t want to be safe. “No, we want you to be safe.” Help, let me out! “No, we want you to be safe.” Can my family and friends at least visit me? “No, not those family and friends. Would you like to see our menu of family and friend options? We want you to be safe.”
If each of us only chose devices on one dimension, it is likely everyone could find a product they like. But we choose devices to balance many concerns, and the artificially inflexible offerings can feel bleak. Because they are! (Both artificial & bleak).
This is essentially the reason open source software exists. Providing ungated alternatives - enabling self-serve specialization by customization - and keeping closed/gated software on its toes. But the real economic conundrums of open source are nothing compared to the *practical* economic conundrums of open hardware. And increasingly, wide appeal operating systems are low-level integrated with hardware defenses - for good reasons. But without opt-outs.
All of the limitations of the iPad are coming for your macbook, too. Already, it's difficult (not yet impossible) to install software outside the confines of Apple's app store. Already it's difficult (not yet impossible) to develop software for a mac without paying Apple for the privilege of "signing" your code.
Already, it's difficult (not yet impossible) to install software outside the confines of Apple's app store.
My installation of arbitrary software onto my MacBook via Homebrew, Nix, mise, downloading a DMG or .pkg via browser, or even the dreaded curlbash feel just as uninhibited by MacOS as they felt to me in 2015.
At most I have the one-time check-a-box about unsigned software to contend with, or a per-install approval step if I used more security-conservative settings.
None of this was either difficult or forbidden to me.
> All of the limitations of the iPad are coming for your macbook, too.
No offence but people have been saying that since about a month after the iPad launched and yet.
> Already, it's difficult (not yet impossible) to install software outside the confines of Apple's app store.
What's difficult? You download the DMG, open it, drag the app to Applications, job done. Or you install Homebrew if you're mostly after CLI tools. Or compile it yourself if you're happy going that route. (I use all 3 on a regular basis.)
> Already it's difficult (not yet impossible) to develop software for a mac
No, that bit is easy.
> without paying Apple for the privilege of "signing" your code.
That bit can be problematic, yeah. But you can ship unsigned apps and people can install them just fine.
(AFAICT you also have to pay if you want to sign your apps on Windows. It's the cost of providing the infrastructure, I suppose.)
All the downvoters and replies: "I don't live in a cage! They give us exercise time in the yard twice a day as long as I'm on good behavior."
Honestly embarrassing reactions from people pretending not to understand the difference between a machine you control and a machine Apple generously (for now) allows you to use in the way you wish.
There are market reasons for this behavior. Asymmetric information in markets (lemon markets), true cost obfuscation, hidden terms, platform capture, manipulations in form of anti-patterns, monopoly behavior, to just mention a few of the very large ones.