>> Because it gives techies the nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux.

> The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks.

It doesn't have to be the best nix environment. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a good one. It just has to be "good-enough". For this, they still have an advantage over Windows. And compared with Linux, they still have the advantage that by-and-large, things "just work". I have never personally been able to say that about a Linux desktop I've had. There is always one more thing to tweak, one more knob to turn, etc...

I'm with you on the ESC key and touch bar though... which they thankfully fixed the missing ESC key.