They don't "provide macOS for free" any more than they provided the T key on your mac keyboard for free: their software is only designed to run on their hardware (for which they also attempt legal restrictions to prevent you using it elsewhere in addition to cryptographic DRM techniques) and they really only want you running their software in their hardware (which they already go to lengths to enforce on iOS and which they increasingly are pushing onto macs)... the software may as well be firmware (and in fact that is what Apple calls it on iOS) and is part of the vertically integrated product they sold you; so being annoyed about this is at least as legitimate about being annoyed that they didn't implement well any other feature of this laptop you are paying over a thousand dollars for (and, as stated by the person you are responding to, not just in their response to you but also in the post you responded to, the response is to just take their money elsewhere, which is _great_).