...and now Apple has altered the deal and we must pray they do not alter it further. Disgusting. Predictable, expected, unsurprising -- but still disgusting.
To be fair to Apple though, it's their OS, they can do what they want and we agree every time we update MacOS or iOS. It's crazy to me that we basically only have 3 phone device choices, 2.15 environment choices (OS wise... Linux Desktop is crap, but getting better), and only 2 choices in GPU's, CPU's, etc...
What can we do about this?
Apple has historically always considered itself a hardware company, and now it is a hardware and services company. Small but concrete examples are the Settings page's "Activate your free trial of AppleTV+ today!" and their constant pitching of Apple Card. This is the thin edge, more than likely, of them moving to a model not of monetizing your hardware but rather capturing your data and selling you on a subscription bundle of services.
This transition is in a way necessitated by their declining revenue growth, so they're looking at new ways of monetizing their existing users.