I have not reinstalled MacOS since I bought my laptop, 5 years ago. And before that it was the same with another 5 year old laptop. These laptops feel pretty snappy still.

I bought a secondary laptop - a 12 inch Macbook Pro - and it took a few hours to set up. I didn't have to turn a bunch of things off. I didn't have to find the button that wouldn't send my entire life to a tech company. Just a few clicks and done. It's decently fast for such an old, underpowered machine, too.

For the most part, the OS gets out of the way.