Apple users are already locked into the whole vertical stack. The friction in that ecosystem comes from trying to use other hardware. If you daily-drive a Mac, you probably also have an iPhone and your biggest screen might be driven by an apple TV. And, oh, you might as well get their accessories and peripherals too so that everything just works. AirPods, mouse, keyboard. All the way through to the software experience. It’s not just inconvenient or risky to install an app from outside of the app store, you may literally think it’s the only way to install software, so the thought never occurs. Every design choice in the ecosystem serves to keep users corralled. The tech stack of an Apple user is a continuous, gapless monolith made of glass and brushed aluminum. It keeps them safe, serves their every need, and has “designed by Apple in California” stamped on the bottom.

Meanwhile, in Redmond, Microsoft roots around desperately in the same bag of dirty tricks they have been for 30+ years for something that will give them a fraction of that cohesiveness, while half their user base doesn’t even know what their browser is called.