I don't care if the inevitable future of the Mac platform is more locked down. In fact I welcome it. Does it limit what I can do with my device? Of course. Do I lament some of the control I’ve already given up? Sure. But the trade off is a safer and smoother computing experience that allows me to focus more on what I want to achieve with what the platform does provide.
I spent some time on Linux, I got into hyper-customizing every minute detail, I swapped out third party RAM and even early adopted SSDs by mounting them in the optical drive bay. I built a PC tower from personally selected components. I triple booted Windows and Linux on my first Intel Mac with community built boot loaders well before Boot Camp was a thing.
I can’t imagine spending my time that way anymore. I learned a lot, but now I just wanna get stuff done. I like having some of the system out of reach. I like knowing that it’s readonly and I like the kind of hardware advances Apple’s vertical integration has enabled.
It’s okay if we value different things, and it’s okay if we make different compromises to experience them.