to me, every release is more locked down and dumbed down.

and privacy. I remember when macos used to ask you before sending data back to apple. Now it does it all day every day, with 1000 pages of privacy policy explaining what they do, but little or no ability to prevent it.

> every release is more locked down and dumbed down.

Do you have some specific examples, that are still a problem?

You can still switch over to "unsafe" mode, and turn off SIP.

People say this every time. It's no more locked down than it was 10 years ago.

pretty much this.

It's a consumer OS, same as Windows, designed to be as idiot-proof as possible and protect the user from making stupid mistakes. I'm not in that target market (though I still make a lot of stupid mistakes).

Neal Stephenson said it better: http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html

I'm using a 14" M1 macbook pro for work and frankly, the hardware is good/okay but MacOS is awful.

I'm keeping an eye on Asahi Linux, i might pull the trigger and use that on my macbook.

But I'm skeptical about this, I might just buy a second hand thinkpad (as usual) or maybe a framework laptop (waiting for reviews on the 16" model) and call it a day.

That's pretty much where I am too. Using a Purism 13 laptop at the moment which is great but showing its age, and I don't think there's a processor upgrade path for it. So at some point in the next couple of years I'm getting a new laptop, and Framework is the leading contender at the moment, but the Apple chips are looking mighty tasty.