There's no getting away from it. Unless you're RMS, you're dependent on Microsoft or Apple. Just like your phones are dependent on Google or Apple. Is it a good thing? Nope, but it's real convenient and so most people will compromise.
> Unless you're RMS, you're dependent on Microsoft or Apple
No. Stopping believing this shit. It has never been easier to not depend on any of them.
There are good, perfectly usable phones with de-googled Android. You can buy laptops and desktops that run Linux without issues out of the box for years. You can even game on Linux today better than you can on an Apple box. You have legions of people working on different open source projects that make hosting your own server a matter of point-and-clicking.
It's not an Sisyphean job to keep yourself away from bad tech products. It takes some discipline, but so does anything worth doing.
And if you really just want to pay to get rid of any "headache", why not then pay for an open source alternative so you can be safe knowing you won't get locked in?
