So I am about to start a new job, and the new workplace was about to send a new Macbook Pro out to me, which I didn't want. So I went to do some research for a laptop with any Linux distro preinstalled so that I could go back to them and tell them I'd rather have this.
I found out that there is no decent laptop with Linux preinstalled. System76 has some decent systems, but they didn't come close to what the likes of Dell and Lenovo offer with Windows. For now System76 seems to show most potential in this area though, so it will be interesting to see what they do going forward.
Lenovo's upcoming ThinkPad laptops include some models with preinstalled Fedora as an option:
The announcement regarding Lenovo's upcoming ThinkPad laptops coming with Fedora pre-installed came a literally 1 or 2 days after I'd already ordered the P1 Gen 2, which according to Canonical is certified[0] to run Linux correctly, and it's the reason I went for that. Regardless, the next generation would have left me without a laptop for the job.
By all means make the OS downloadable separately, share with the community and all that, but to make a profit, you need to sell hardware. And the hardware needs to be good.