This right here. When I first heard about android, I imagined an open system I could tinker with like I can on my PC.

Instead I get the current evolution. I want a 3rd party.

The same thing comes to my every day of usage, I'm still on win 7, and short of leaving Linux(yes I should have already), I can't upgrade without becoming a product.

I want what we all imagined and dreamt of, and I pay for it.

What I won't do, is become a product.

Instead I'm stuck with multiple fake accounts on Gmail, using a pseudonym on everything(including programming contract sites such as upwork), just to keep some semi iota of privacy, and to enjoy the benefits of what we all want.

Imho we need a new major party to emerge, that will charge an initial fee(like windows 7), and let us do what we want with those services(with caveats of course).

But I fear we won't get that anymore.

Learning* not leaving Linux. Too late to edit. Damn you fat thumbs.

That explains my confusion.

It's not that complicated. Use a common distro like Ubuntu and everything's documented online.

I keep meaning to learnt it, and try it.

But my main coding(admittedly amateur and earning very little) uses .net. on top of that most of the games I play to relax are Windows does only(as far as I know for most).

O keep meaning to make time, but it just hasn't happened yet. I don't get paid as a programmer (English teacher), so I need to spend my free time earning money on what I know.

As always, one day when I have money to spare(or time, which is basically the same thing haha).

You can move to Mac, AppleID is not really required.

Without trying to look like an arse, why? I have been on pc since dos, I can hack my way around any pc.

I will fully admit I have not spent enough time in Mac to figure out the file system, but from what (little) I have seen, your not in control.

I like my pc because I can see what sub-processes are running, who is taking up how much memory, install things to where I want and if worse comes to worse, manually change how windows runs. (I apologise if you can do all that in Mac, as I said, I don't have the experience certificate - I bounced off it hard).

So go Hackintosh. At least you don't have to distrust your OS vendor.

To answer your questions, you're in complete control with macOS, you can turn off SIP, turn off Gatekeeper and install whatever kernel extensions you want. Apple doesn't snoop on you like with Win10 telemetry.

The problem with Mac is that one needs to have Apple hardware, you can't even change your RAM sticks to the ones that Apple didn't approve. There is nothing (apart from maybe some fancy Adobe software) that you can't run on Linux just as well or even better.

Totally agree, I remember when that was the promise! I wonder what Ununtu smart phones are like ?

Maybe people could imagine a world where the adage "if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product" would be widely relevant, sure. But not a world where that phrase would be irrelevant, simply because today if you're paying for the product, you're still the product.

That existed at least as long as cable TV, probably longer.