Personally, I strongly agree with your colleague. If you truly believe openness is a good thing (and it sounds like you do), Apple’s ethos is just about the direct antithesis. They only collaborate with the wider tech industry when they absolutely have to. Otherwise, they are greedy, secretive, controlling, and vindictive - oftentimes openly hostile to anyone who dares choose a non-Apple device/platform.

The best example of this is the iMessage “green bubbles” phenomenon. Some background: Apple’s default texting experience is iMessage. This service has a bunch of nice, modern chat features - except they’re only available when texting another iPhone. These “better” messages are indicated by blue bubbles. People who don’t use iPhones (whether by choice or by necessity) are forced to use the ancient, insecure, feature-poor SMS protocol, reducing the privacy and security of everyone involved (including iPhone users). It’s also extremely obvious when this happens, since the chat app will switch to green bubbles.

In places where this service has caught on (such as the US), Apple uses this separation to deliberately make texting non-iPhone users a significantly worse experience. This causes social effects, especially among teenagers, where those who don’t use iPhone are bullied and shunned for being a “green bubble”. The Wall Street Journal did a great expose into this phenomenon.

Now, to be clear, this is a totally artificial problem - Apple could fix this overnight if they wanted. For years, the wider tech industry has been working on replacing SMS with a much more modern standard called RCS. Every single other party in the mobile industry has adopted it. Apple, however, is the lone holdout. They see kids bullying other kids into buying an iPhone as a good thing - more iPhone sales! In fact, Apple openly encouraged that narrative: when a journalist asked the (very reasonable) question of “how can I make texting with my Android-user mom better?”, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded with “buy your mom an iPhone.”

There’s plenty more examples of this antagonistic behavior I could talk about, but this one is the most telling.

Of course, if you do choose to go all in with them, you won’t see that side of Apple at all. They are frighteningly good at cultivating their image as the “good guys” among Big Tech, and, honestly, it’s not unwarranted. They are good at what they do, and they do take care of their users. Their tech is great.

Ultimately, my take is that if you prefer using Apple’s stuff over more open alternatives, don’t change what you like! Just remember that they have a dark side. It is good to be aware of the wider tech ecosystem, and to make open technology choices where you can. By being active on the Fediverse, you’re already doing your part 😁

I’ll preface this by saying don’t beat yourself up for using Apple. You can be critical and still use their products. I am typing this on Windows 10 and have a macbook for work. Microsoft and Google are far from perfect in this space. As the saying goes, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” lol.

I think you should use open source software but I don’t think you should force yourself if good alternatives don’t exist for your use case. A good example is Photoshop. The open source version is GIMP. I use GIMP mostly because I don’t want to pay for Photoshop but from what I’ve heard from people who edit pictures professionally it is not even a competition.

Compare that to Audacity, my understanding is more people in the audio world use it. Or VLC Media player! It can basically open any format of video, it’s crazy!

If you’re curious to try a linux desktop operating system the choices will become overwhelming like you said. Ubuntu is the go-to suggestion usually. There are ways to create “live USBs” to run it from the USB like a test drive (but it may be slow). I’ve decided my next computer I build I’m going to run Linux primarily but I haven’t got around to building it.

I hate the current state of Apple with a burning passion. At some point I had tried using their devices. They treat me like I am severely mentally impaired and need saving from myself. But if you like their interface, the interconnectivity and the workflow, more power to you. I myself have bought windows keys from shady websites for like 10% of the price (I am a gamer and linux wasn’t ready for gaming at the time). I have stripped the OS of all the tracking bullshit, used third party tools to disable everything I don’t like, uninstalled Edge (painful), installed tools to disable licensing checks in programs (sketchy), etc. I have never bought an iPhone. When I switch phones, I root the old one for shits and giggles. I use only open-source software and everything I publish (files for 3d printing) are openly accessible too and never paywalled. But not everyone can live like me. I have, at one point in my life, spent 18 hours at my PC screwing around with the registry in windows, to disable some slimy POS tracker. I do not have a problem with anyone choosing convenience over cheapness or open-sourceness. But I hope more people make the leap. Because your coworker is right. The problem is absolutely the same. I hope open-source gets more convenient to use. For example gaming on Linux is finally possible. You can’t change the whole world, you can only change yourself. And you won’t do it overnight, you have to wake up in the morning and make a conscious effort of making a change in your routine. I convinced my SO to at least try an Android phone after she was done with her iPhone. Now she can never go back. Now she has a Laptop with Windows on it. A custom PC, which she wouldn’t trade for a top of the line MacBook. In any case, OP: if you want to make a change, do it one step at a time. Don’t overload yourself. I was introduced to linux by my dad, where he helped me follow a tutorial on how to make a bootable usb drive for Ubuntu. It was fun and not complicated at all. Once you have that USB, try booting off of it, play around in Linux. Have some fun. It is closer to MacOS than Windows. It just doesn’t stop you from being dumb and doing dumb things :). And after that, if you like it, do some more research, try some more things. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Edit: removed and replaced the R-Slur. Apologies.