I wouldn't presume to speak for everyone, but in my case particularly e.g. when making the leap back to PC away from macs, I poured over maybe 100 of this kind of review before settling on a final choice

If people weren't reading those articles the writers would not be incentivized to write them in the first place.

My sister, sister in law, and elderly parent all want new laptops this year. They are somewhat tech literate but not that interested in tech or computers. They asked me for advice on what to purchase and the only thing they cared about was which apple product was cheapest but still fast enough to use the programs they needed. Other platforms never even entered into the conversation.

They care, its just perfomance is only one of many factors that people consider when they buy a laptop. Screen quality, customer support, resale value, sad speed and many many others.