I have Mac hardware and and have spent $0 through the Mac App Store. I do not use iCloud on it either. I do on iDevices though. I must be an edge case though.
All of us on HN are basically edge cases. The main target market of Macs is super dependent on Apple service subscriptions.
Maybe that's why they ship with insultingly-small SSDs by default, so that as people's photo libraries, Desktop and Documents folders fill up, Apple can "fix your problem" for you by selling you the iCloud/Apple One plan to offload most of the stuff to only live in iCloud.
Either they spend the $400 up front to get 2 notches up on the SSD upgrade, to match what a reasonable device would come with, or they spend that $400 $10 a month for the 40 month likely lifetime of the computer. Apple wins either way.
Of course this is the reason.
And this is why Apple has become so bad for the tech enthusiasts, no matter how good the OS/software can be, you have to pay a tax that is way too big because you already have the competence that should allow you to bypass it.
It's like learning about growing vegetables in your garden but then having to pay the seeds for it much more because you actually know how to produce value with them.
The philosophy at Apple has changed from premium tools for professional to luxury device for normies that makes them pay for their incompetence.
