For the record the mac share of market at 2% is USA desktop. For example mac is top of European education market 15% (Dell 14%) and 19% & 59% in French & Swiss education.

I don't think any of that is relevent. What matters is that it is usually smaller companies that carry out intelligent R&D and make technical advances. Larger companies are rarely interested in anything other than maximising their profits. The first generation of 'IBM comaptible' PCs held back computing for a decade, Windows 98 being the first usable version of Windows which Mac, Atari and Amiga had been using for a decade. Microsoft killed off the mac Darwin proposal that would have made vast savings for us all on software (as each sub-set of functions would run in same windows) both financial and ease of use/learning.

The route to making any machine cheaper is to make it last longer, not deliberately build in obsolescence. I think my 1989 mac IIci is still running at a collectors after having being used by my daughter for uni around 2000 and capable of running earlier version of every program I then had. My 1998 one is still going happily in a Kenyan charity. It would read everything, mac, PC, Atari back to 1987.

Lastly, most high tech machines are way beyond what the buying consumer can evaluate and most reviews are 'buggins turn' promo. Fortunately cameras have not become monopolised by an antisocial company and we do still have a good choice and the reviews are more serious. Don't anyone knock or mock the smaller players.