They don’t want to be interoperable because then you might realize you’re paying a huge premium for an inferior product.
Very quickly, the Mac keyboard shortcuts have totally won me over with how much better they are. They’re actually a big part of the reason I got into the computer in the first place. It’s SO much nicer once you get used to it.
Doubly so because I use an ergonomic split keyboard, so the Mac layout means it’s much easier to do most actions without twisting my hands in weird ways. Copy in terminal? Cmd+C. Compared to Ctrl+Shift+C.
Ctrl still works for all of the standard terminal functions.
And, as a big vim user, I can use a vim emulator within my IDE. I can still get all of the IDE shortcuts with The Cmd key, but also all of the vim actions with the Ctrl key still work and don’t conflict. This is arguably the biggest win of all.
It was Microsoft who chose to be different here.
Current PC keyboards, minus the Windows key, are nearly identical to The IBM model F that came with the IBM 3270 in 1983 [1] (the arrow keys are quite different). (Note: IBM is responsible for this, not Microsoft)
The Apple IIe also came out in 1983 [2] but had a very different layout from what Apple uses today. The "open apple" and "closed apple" (two different modifiers) were all that was on the bottom row, similar to left and right command. Control was located above, and option was missing.
Macintosh's keyboards kept evolving well after PC keyboards reached their final form, aside from the addition of the windows key in 1994 (that was microsoft, not surprisingly).
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_F_keyboard#/media/File:I...
[2]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Apple_II...
Edit: Just for giggles, here's the 1982 Commodore 64's keyboard:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Commodor...
And the 1984 Commodore Amiga 1000's keyboard:
https://www.oldcomputr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/commod...
Every platform has had it's own ideas about what keyboards should look like. In terms of current user-base, the clear winner is the IBM PC keyboard. It was more justifiable for manufacturers to go their own way in the wild and wooley early 80's while everyone was inventing their own way of doing things. Today, when the same software runs on multiple platforms, it's an annoying problem.
One more fun edit:
Here's the 1977 Apple II keyboard.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Apple_II...
Just imagine using a computer with the power key right next to the Shift key and where the CTRL key is today!
As someone who've been on linux for almost a decade on different notebooks and then switched to mac - no, not an inferior product in any way.