I think this really hits the nail on the head. Granted, this is all anecdotal, and for every positive story I'm sure there is a negative one, and we'll never really have these statistics, but I'd kill to know what percentage of long term Apple users feel this way about their products vs users of other companies. Not counting the Apple II's inherited from my stepdad as a kid, I've had a clamshell iBook that I ran Debian on in high school, a ~2008 Mac Mini that I developed my first iOS game on, an iPhone 3G, 4S, 5S, 7+, a ~2010 and a ~2014 Mac Mini at work, and my 2016 MBP, and every single one is either still in use, or was used basically to obsolescence.
FWIW, I don't use the entirety of the ecosystem by any means. I literally don't use iCloud, Apple Music, Siri, and probably a myriad of other tech they offer. And yet, I still get an enormous amount of value out of each product I purchase from them.
Full disclosure, I was primarily an iOS dev from 2011-2015, and at least 50% of what I do now is still iOS development.
If the price ever outweighs the utility, I'll just stop buying Apple. There's nothing that's that important that would keep me locked in. If a comparable Android phone comes out that works as well as my iPhone, I'll jump ship but only because the extra cost in no way outweighs what I've spent in iOS apps. I'm not going to keep putting money into something that doesn't work for me. I don't get the people that are just brand loyalists for the sake of brand loyalty. I like Apple products because they're the best for me. Why is that weird for some people?