 Windows or Mac? If I had to choose between those two choices, which one would I choose? I get this question all the time. I get this question from viewers of the channel because I guess I'm the Linux guy. All I run is Linux. I really don't know much about Windows and Mac these days because I've been strictly a Linux user for about 15 years now. And also in real life, people know me as the Linux guy, a Linux nerd, right? And sometimes in real life, I'll have people ask me about computer choices. They're going to go to Best Buy and Buy a computer. They're not going to buy a Linux computer because there are none available. But they want to know, hey, would you go with a Windows machine, a PC, or would you go with a Mac? Which one would you buy, DT? And the answer to this question is actually really simple. The ideology I come from as far as free software, open source software, and just freedom in general, freedom to do what you want with your equipment and your software, even though both Windows and Mac are proprietary in nature, I would definitely, if I only had two options, say I'm working at a company and they tell me I need a computer or they're going to buy me a computer, buy me a laptop, for example. And hey, I can either have a Windows machine if I want or I can have a MacBook. Which one would I choose? I would buy the Windows machine every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Now, both Windows and Mac are proprietary. They're proprietary software. And of course, with Mac, you also have this closed ecosystem as far as their hardware as well. And I often talk about there's really no middle ground. Either something is fully free and open source or it's proprietary. There's no weird middle ground where it's half open source, it's half proprietary. No, that doesn't exist, right? This is truly a black and white argument. A heads or tail, right? It's a binary event, if you will, right? It's either open source or it's proprietary. There's no middle ground and both Windows and Mac are in fact proprietary. But there are levels of what I consider evil or immorality. I do think Apple as a company and just Apple as a brand and what they are promoting is a much more dangerous situation than anything that Microsoft is doing as far as Microsoft Windows. Because at the end of the day, when I buy a copy of Microsoft Windows, I'm buying one program, one piece of software, a proprietary piece of software, but I'm not really locked into anything beyond that. Where with Apple and with Mac OS, to run the Mac OS, you need Mac hardware, right? You really can't run Mac on anything that's not a Mac computer. Yes, I know there are things like Hackintosh out there, but there's some legality questions with that. And honestly, it's just a headache to even set up things like Hackintosh. It's just simply not worth it. If you're actually going to run Mac, you have to go buy a Mac computer. And I think that is a very dangerous situation because now you're really in this walled garden. You're locked into their ecosystem. And I'm talking about a complete ecosystem from hardware to the operating system. All the software that runs on that operating system, most of it is Apple software. And they kind of lock you into these proprietary formats and these proprietary programs, things like iTunes. If you want to listen to your music, you have to have iTunes. If you want to sync your music from your MacBook to your iPod and your iPhone, all these other devices, you have to have iTunes. And then the iTunes format is proprietary formats as far as the format of the audio tracks themselves. You're locked into this Apple ecosystem. They control it. They control everything. And you can't get away from that because you can never take your iTunes music and go somewhere else. They have trapped you and they will never let you go at that point. In many ways, what Apple as a company has done is ingenious because they know most people are willing to trade their freedoms. They're willing to give up so much of their freedom if you can give them a little convenience. And that is what Apple has done with all this iDevices, right? All these iDevices that are all tied to each other and can easily sync with each other and talk to each other. It's so convenient to have an Apple computer and an iPhone and all these iDevices, these home listening devices that people have nowadays that are just a microphone that's listening to you all the time. You've essentially bugged your house with all these Apple products. And of course, Apple is listening all the time. Everything you do on your iPhone, they know about it. Everything you type, everything you speak into the microphone, even when you think the microphone is not actually listening. Trust me, it's listening. They're mining you. They're data mining you. And this is dangerous. This is something you shouldn't buy into. Now, is this to say that Microsoft is a more moral company or they're a better company? You can trust Microsoft? No. Microsoft very much would like to bone you just like Apple. They just can't do it in the same way that Apple has been able to do it because the business model for Microsoft selling all of its software has been very different from Apple's business model, which was really hardware related more than the software. The software is kind of a bonus if you're willing to pay that premium for our hardware. Oh, by the way, our hardware very overpriced because it's an elite club, right? We've got that Apple logo and unlike Microsoft Windows where I can go to a store and I can buy whatever computer I want that can run Windows. I can buy a Dell computer if I want or an HP computer or maybe a ASUS laptop or a Lenovo ThinkPad, whatever it is I want to put Windows on. I can do that. I can't do that with the Mac OS. It's got to be Mac's own hardware. And with Microsoft Windows, because I can go and buy any machine I want from any manufacturer, most manufacturers allow you to repair your own equipment. So if a RAM stick dies, I can change it. If my SSD drive dies, right, I can change it. But with Apple devices, you are not allowed to repair your own devices. You must take them to a certified Apple dealer. That way they can charge you an outrageous price to fix your device because you can't get into that MacBook. It's got weird screws and locking mechanisms. And even if you can't get in there, you're going to find that the RAM sticks are soldered in place. So if you have a bad RAM stick, you can't just easily swap it out even though it's such an easy fix. They force you to take it to that certified Apple repairman to force you to pay them money for something you could easily change yourself. Same thing for SSDs and other really simple fixes. Sometimes the fixes for these devices, I've heard people take their machines to these certified Apple dealers. And it's some weird fix like a cord came loose, right? Something came unplugged. But the fact that they had to take it to the certified Apple dealer, they get charged an outrageous amount of money for something really that should be free of charge. And for most computer repairmen, they probably would do free of charge. They'd say, oh, this is such an easy fix. Let me plug that back in. Here's your computer. No charge. But that's not the way the Apple Store works, right? They're designed to completely screw you over. You're constantly being overcharged to be a part of the Apple Club. That's a very elite special club. And they know that people have this kind of elitist cultish kind of mentality where the Mac crowd, they actually think they're special. They think, you know, because I have that piece of hardware that I'm in this special club and it makes me feel proud that I'm a member of that club. And Apple knows the way people think and they actually make you pay to be a part of this special club. Their hardware is outrageously overpriced. And on top of that, not only do they make you pay more for that hardware than what it really calls, their hardware has planned obsolescence, meaning they want to make sure that those MacBooks, they have a short shelf life, right? They're not going to last that long. Same thing with your iPhones. They want to make sure you have to go buy an iPhone every year, two years max, right? They want you to go pay that thousand dollars plus for the new phone every single year and that's how Apple becomes a trillion dollar company. You know, the richest company in the world is because they're selling people overpriced hardware that they're already planning on that hardware failing earlier than really it needs to. So you have to go buy more overpriced hardware and the fact that you feel like you're in a special club, you're actually going to buy into this happily, right? You're not going to complain about it because it's Apple. It makes you feel good to be a member of that club. It doesn't matter that they're completely hosing you. And I haven't even talked about Apple as a company and the fact that they use child labor and slave labor to build a lot of these devices that people buy. There's some real ethical issues around Apple and its leadership. And I know a lot of people, especially people that are a member of the Mac cult, you know, you own these devices and you think Apple is a great company and you're part of this special club. A lot of you people, because you're in the club, you feel like you have to defend them because you don't want to admit you made a mistake buying into that. So you defend people like Steve Jobs. You make up these outrageous stories like Steve Jobs was some kind of real innovator. Like he actually changed humanity for the better and like he was a pioneer in the tech industry. And Steve Jobs was nothing special. He never did anything. He certainly didn't do anything that was a positive influence on society at all. And now you've got these people trying to rewrite history to make him a hero. And you got all these books and movies about Steve Jobs when really Steve Jobs in a lot of ways was like a tyrant, right? He was responsible for so much death and destruction and heartache and pain in the world. More than most people would ever want to admit, certainly the people that are part of the Apple cult. They're never going to admit that. So if I was in a situation where I was forced to switch operating systems, I could no longer run Linux. What would I go to? Well, honestly, I would go to any other free and open source operating system because I'm all about free and open source software. If Linux didn't exist, I just run one of the BSD operating systems or Haiku or React OS or, you know, there's many free and open source operating systems out there other than Linux. They're not as good as Linux, but that doesn't matter because for ideological reasons I would still use them. I would prefer to use them than the proprietary alternatives like Windows or Mac. But getting back to the question I know so many people wanted to ask me and have asked me over the years is if I was forced to use Windows or Mac, maybe for job purposes, I had to choose either Windows or Mac. Which one would I choose? Again, I would use Microsoft Windows every single time because honestly, I just respect Microsoft as a company far more than I will ever respect Apple. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode. And of course, I'm talking about Dustin, Gabe, James, Matt, Maxim, and Michael Mitchell, Paul, Wes, Wyobold, Homie, Alex, Alan, Armored, Dragon, Chuck, Commander, Erie, Diokai, Dylan, Greg, Mars, Ram, Erie, Yon, Alexander, Paul, Peace, Arch, Infador, Polytech, Realities for Less Red Profit, Steven, Tools, Devler, and Willie. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work and want to see more videos about Linux and free and open source software and not proprietary garbage like Windows and Mac, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. Peace, guys. Choosing between Windows and Mac is like choosing between AIDS and cancer.