I wholeheartedly agree. The state of personal computing in 2019 is one of uncomfortable compromises. I'm still using my Macs; I have a 2013 Mac Pro that I regularly use at home, a 2013 MacBook Air that I also regularly use whenever I'm not at home, and a work-issued 2018 MacBook Pro that I use all the time. I believe that the macOS experience and value proposition has regressed from what it was earlier this decade. I resent the move toward non-upgradeable RAM and storage, and I resent the higher prices, especially with the 2019 Mac Pro, which starts at $5999 (compare that to the $2999 entry-level price of the 2013 Mac Pro). I am also concerned about the direction of the Mac; I am concerned that within the next five years the Mac will be a locked-down platform with some allowances for programmability.

I feel that the writing is on the wall regarding the future of the Mac, and eventually I'll have to change platforms. I've been testing the waters with Windows 10 and Linux. I have a Dell XPS 9570 with Windows 10 Professional that I sometimes use. It's an excellent machine (I like it better than my work-issued 2018 MacBook Pro), and I really like Windows' Linux subsystem, but Windows 10 has its annoyances, most notably the ads and the mandatory updates. I also think Windows 10's interface looks gaudy with its oversized bars (especially the title bars), although Windows 10 doesn't look as bad on a 4K monitor. I also use the Linux Mint distribution on a ThinkPad T430 that I use for web browsing, traveling, and some light programming. I like the Cinnamon desktop, and I can generally find replacements for many of the macOS applications I use. However, I miss the fit-and-finish of macOS. I miss the consistency between applications found in macOS. I miss macOS's pervasive support for PDFs, and macOS's superior font rendering compared to Linux. I miss macOS's Dictionary.app, which I regularly use for both English and Japanese; so far I have not found anything like it on other platforms.

So, while I could sell my Macs and switch entirely to Windows 10 and Linux tomorrow and still remain productive, I will lose many of the positive aspects of the Mac that keep me on the platform. macOS is still the desktop that emphasizes fit-and-finish and consistency among applications, and I will lose this fit-and-finish and consistency when switching to other platforms.

Honestly, I think the time is ripe for another operating system, one that picks up where macOS has left off yet is not restricted to a specific vendor's hardware. Personally I believe the desktop operating system of the future will be one that draws from some ideas from the past that have never been fully realized. The high-level interface will be inspired by the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, preferably those from the classic Mac era (I admit, as much as I like Mac OS X, I believe that the classic Mac OS era was actually superior from a usability standpoint, even if its infrastructure wasn't solid). Application software should be built using components inspired by Apple's OpenDoc project. The system should be an object system inspired by Smalltalk or CLOS that enables pervasive programmability of the environment and supports an objects-all-the-way-down environment, and the operating system should provide a REPL for programmers. The difficult part will be how to make such an operating system happen, since building an operating system is a large effort, and I believe part of the reason why the desktop computing situation in 2019 is the way that it is has to do with market forces. Still, I'm dreaming of such an operating system being developed.