It was a really long article about the history of the apple and difficult growing it, but I didn't see the title answered anywhere. It ended taking about surplus and storage requirements.
I got a tiny lot and started growing some berries, fruits and veggies. There's a masive selection for pretty much any given species. Do you want eat-off-the-plant or make a jam? Do you prefer more or less sugary taste? How much are you willing to maintain and defend them? If you're looking for analysis paralysis, gardening is the way to go.
Personally I’m after historical apples. I’ve two local classics. One breed is from 19th century, the other is probably older, but I don’t buy claims it’s coming from medieval era. Taste is nice and they survive pretty well with very little upkeep with no modern chemistry.
I also just planted few less-known modern colon style breeds. Fingers crossed few years later it will pay off.
The actionable information is in the beginning: honey crisp apples are not worth it anymore buy whatever instead. For me this keeps it from being insufferable. The stuff in the middle demonstrates what the conditions were like before it went mass market, which supports the conclusion that something changed and that it was likely related to the logistics of growing and distributing the apple.
If you don't like reading these articles, you could try using an LLM to extract a summary before choosing to dive in. I'm sure there are browser extensions for that.
Anecdotally, I had some pretty delicious honeycrisps last night (in WA).
As an example, during the peak of peach season in the region, a South Carolina Sam’s Club had pallets of California peaches!