I am glad that it is working out for you. Not having security updates since January 2020 is a problem though. From what you're saying, it seems that you could upgrade to Windows 10 but then you're forced to stay on an old version of the OS whose EOL is approaching. This generally doesn't happen with Linux, and this is not the only benefit that Linux has.

I’m saying that the old Mac Mini that Apple discontinued support for in 2009 - Microsoft kept “supporting” until 2020. That’s 14 years of life for a computer with 1.5GB RAM, a 60GB spinning hard drive, USB 2, 802.11G. The only saving grace was that it also had Gigabit Ethernet.

My mom kept it because it was useful. But you can buy a $200 Dell (https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspiron-15-300...) that would serve the same purpose - a computer to run Chrome - that would run rings around a 16 year old computer. At some point it just becomes nerd pride to keep using. She does have other computers that she uses that are newer. But once it was EOL, she never used it.

Personally, I wouldn’t even think about getting any x86 laptop in 2022. Using an Intel laptop with its horrible battery life, heat and fan noise compared to an ARM Mac is like using a flip phone after the iPhone came out

I agree with you on Intel, and their CPUs also have the undisableable Intel Management Engine[1] problem.

But feeding the market power of a big company so that it can become a duopolist or a monopolist is not a good idea. Such market power is always used to perpetuate that power and to extract value from you. Hopefully with efforts like Asahi Linux,[2] Linux can soon be a daily driver on the M1, too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

[2] https://asahilinux.org/

Apple is part of a duopoly in personal computers with around a 10% market share?

I did not say that. Microsoft is though (which was part of our previous conversation) and Apple as a company is a duopoly in smartphones and I expect them to aspire to using the same strategy in other domains.