it's funny how circumstance changes you. if i still had my cushy, well-paid and very interesting tech job (yes i am aware what an enormous privilege that was) i would just throw €2500 at apple and get me a max-spec m1 macbook air, and then not have to think about all of this for another few years, maybe switching to asahi if i got frustrated enough with macOS. but now i am living the "full-time passion project" (i.e. unsustainable finances) life, so.

and to be clear, it's not a bad thing that i'm forced to change course here. as a mac user i basically get trapped in an overpriced-storage ratchet. with each new mac, i double the space, and i can't ever reduce it much, so each new mac is more expensive than the last, even though the flash chips only get cheaper with time.

@hikari I have this idea of someday moving out of the Apple ecosystem in the back of my mind and I'm dreading it. I also switched to Mac about 11 years ago and not really used a different desktop OS since then (although I work with Ubuntu/Debian servers a lot). I also use a ton of Apple-specific apps. I guess the best way is to slowly switch one app/service at a time...

Good luck with your switch!

@stefandesu thanks! yeah i'm not looking forward to finding a new to-do list app, a new music player, no longer having handoff, a new disk encryption solution, and many other things like this