I don't think that expecting everyone to waste 3x the money to scratch the same itch is an informed take, specially when the $300 shovelware has far better specs in terms of RAM and by far HD.

Nowadays you can even get better performing miniPCs for half the price than your MacBook Air M3, such as any of the systems packing a AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS.

I think some people look at the shiny computers and don't look past that.

This is a stupid comparison: even a Mac mini pretty much fulfills this, since the M4 is a step up from the M3 and the actively-cooled mini can sustain higher performance than the passively-cooled MacBook Air, and at about half the price of an M3 MacBook Air.

Ah! my early 2015 13" Macbook pro died only few weeks back. I don't think any other laptop will last nearly 10 years (TBF I did replace the battery and speakers for $280 in 2020 though)

and a pleasure to work with

I am sad that the resale value didn't hold as much as people claim Apple products do, but that’s because of the overpriced storage mostly

Looks like I can get $2500 vs the $7600 I paid for it

So rolling over into a newer maxed out model isnt so easily rationalized

I’d be tempted to buy a used machine with more RAM because I’ve had really good experiences with used electronics like laptops or phones.

BTW I have Apple Intelligence turned off but I’m not prepared to say it won’t ever be useful for anybody.