> My personal machine is the first and only new computer I ever bought: a 2012 Mac book air.

This is the single Apple computer that I have fully operational. Anything made under Tim Cook - MBPs, iMac - lasted for up to 4 years before either too expensive to fix hardware failures occurred or Apple artificially slowed down those devices by blocking the ability to install non-newest macOS which made those devices too slow to work efficiently. Every installer from High Sierra to Big Sur starts but in 100% cases shows random errors at the end and fails to finish. Monterey is so slow on the 2017 MBP that the cursor is jumpy even in the installer.