You know, if I made a statement and everyone responding disagreed with me or appeared to be misunderstanding me, I’d consider the quality of my own communication first before spending a day telling everyone else that they’re wrong or failing to understand me. You’re the common factor in all these discussions.
Your argument hinges on the fact that it doesn’t appear on your receipt. Neither do any of the components of my M1 Macbook Pro other than the optional extras that I selected. By your logic I only paid for the itemised extras.
You’re arguing that any perks tied to a purchase aren’t actually factored into the cost, which is certainly a mindset that some people have and those people are the kinds of consumers that give marketers wet dreams.
A “free” perk that has the implicit requirement of buying into the company’s ecosystem - whether through a software subscription or purchasing proprietary hardware - is not free. You’ve already paid into the ecosystem and there is no additional cost.
I own and use Apple products. That’s how I know you’re talking bollocks. You also realised at some point that you were talking bollocks, which is why you’re now pivoting to absolutely absurd responses to pretend this is some elaborate troll attempt.
Alright Theseus, how many components of a macbook need to be removed until you’re no longer buying a macbook? Would you be satisfied receiving an empty box since the monitor, CPU, motherboard etc. are not individually itemised on your receipt for a MacBook?
The OS is a component of the whole product by Apple’s own reporting and marketing material. If you bought a Macbook directly from Apple and it came without MacOS preinstalled, would you consider that a fulfilled transaction?
You’re right. All 8 billion people in the world aren’t telling you you’re wrong so it isn’t literally everyone. You’re the only person rejecting objective fact. People are quoting Apple’s license agreement. “nuh uh, free”. People are rebutting your top level “show me a receipt” comment. “I never mentioned receipts, you brought them up. Also nuh uh, free.” People are explaining the economics of perk systems. “No evidence that Apple applies this general economic theory to its business. Also nuh uh, free.”
You are evidently working with a definition of free that deviates from the commonly understood definition of the word, insofar that no one has yet agreed with you. You need to communicate better because what you are doing now isn’t working. Start by defining what you understand the word free to mean.