How is this different than any other OS? My preferred software is Mac or *nix based, so by your logic:

To be a "Windows user" you have to give up the software you prefer, and use the software Windows prefers you to use. And you don't get to be unhappy if the software you prefer doesn't run OK?

I can't tell but I think you're making my point. As a Windows user, I can absolutely be unhappy if software I prefer does not run. If someone comes around and says "but that software was originally for Mac... you aren't allowed to expect it to run well on Windows! A real Windows user wouldn't complain about that software."

And if the software I prefer runs better on macOS, I have a good reason to switch away from Windows. Just as if software you prefer runs better on Windows, you can complain about macOS (or in this case, incompatibility due to the ISA switch.)

My issue was with the comment using "mac user" as an excuse for software that isn't what the "true" mac user considers essential not working well.

Oh, I think I completely misunderstood your original comment.

MacOS is extremely good at supporting software originally developed on the OSes. After all you can get all the flagship MS Office apps on the Mac in very good iterations, plenty of Windows first vendors do support the Mac with version of their software, there are virtualisation and emulation solutions, and a lot of Linux software compiles and runs fine on the Mac as it's also a flavour of Unix.

In contrast, if you take the vast majority of MacOS first apps, there is no way you are ever running the vast majority of that stuff on other platforms. A wide variety of games even run on MacOS either natively or through compatibility layers like Porting Kit. In this respect out of Windows, Linux/Unix and MacOS, I think it's clear that MacOS wins hands down. It's not even close.

So given that this is pretty obvious, and I have a hard time believing you aren't perfectly well aware of this, why on earth are you trying to make this argument. Is running other platform's software really a primary criterion for you? In which case, the Mac should be right up your street.

But that goes equally across platforms. When I'm on a windows machine, I miss the hell out of Keynote and Bear, for example.

Exactly. So you either go back to using macOS, or you complain that Windows doesn't run the software you like. It's OK to do that for any OS you run. It's a valid reason to not like an OS, or in this case, an OS that is going through a transition to a new ISA. Until it runs the software you prefer, it isn't ideal.

Sure, but it doesn't necessarily make it an objectively poorer product just because it's hard to swim against the current on that platform. Every platform necessarily has some expectation of doing things a certain way, and when things are done that way the experience will be better/easier.

You seemed to be implying that this was some unique problem with OSX and that's what is holding you back from trying M1. But really, it sounds like what is holding you back is just the normal barriers of changing platforms.

Personally as a Windows user I am hoping that Windows for ARM gets supported on M1 soon, but I don't think it's so unreasonable we're not there yet, and I am not going to discount the whole platform just because of it.

I do not hope to imply that this is a unique problem on OSX. I just disagree a bit that you have to conform to a standardized way to use a platform. Perhaps you do, with OSX, and it is a unique problem there? Obviously due to market structure, Microsoft gears Windows to "everyone" without being the "best" for many people, although it tends to be the best for PC gaming.

What is holding me back from trying the M1, personally, is cost. I just paid $950 for a Ryzen 7 4800H with 16GB and GTX 1660 Ti. It can't hold a candle to an M1 Macbook in battery life, but I know I can run my programs and play my games and not think twice about it. My failsafe is an electrical outlet. I'm hoping I can end up trying an M1 (or successor) through an employer though! I spent the past year using a ~2014 Macbook Pro through work, and for work things, it was better than my Windows machines for working on projects where everyone else used bash on a Mac. As WSL improved, I was able to be equally productive on my Windows machines and tend to use them and not bother with the Macbook Pro.

That's all a lot of extra anecdote you didn't need, but to be sure, I'm not trying to single out OSX - the OP singled it out by saying, essentially, "you're using it wrong!"

FWIW my main point was that Moorhead is likely not indicative of the average Mac user.