I can definitely believe that you, as an individual, have driven tens of thousands of dollars in sales Apple's way over the last decade. But even if we assume that there are tens of thousands of people doing the same thing as you (as effectively as you) for the same reasons, that adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars, which is three orders of magnitude below Apple's sales per year, and your impact is stretched out over a decade. Hard to see that loss as more than a rounding error on any Apple projection.

What I'm asking after, I suppose, is evidence that there are "gazillions" of former "Unix converts" driving significantly more money than I'm estimating here. I still continue to feel like this whole "software developers are influencers" line of argumentation when it comes to Apple products is just wishful thinking crossed with extrapolating from very limited personal anecdotes.