Well, you just said it: you wouldn’t want to switch back to a Windows PC (which already have raised prices), and Apple knows you don’t want to go back so… They’re going to push. Because they know they can.
Honestly I think part of the problem (or the biggest part) is the lack of more competition. Smartphones? A duopoly between Apple and Google. Computers? A duopoly between Apple and Microsoft. Yes, we have Linux with its good and not so good particularities, but… I still don’t see it as a reliable and accessible alternative.
As for components, something similar happens: Memory chips? A few specialized companies such as SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung. CPU/GPU chips? Almost a monopoly by TSMC. Yeah, there’s Intel’s foundries (and thank God they still exist), and a few Chinese ones, and Samsung, of course. But I would say TSMC is growing at a pace that is becoming a giant.
I may be a bit naive thinking this but maybe with a more diversified market, even with one or two more actors, we could see a different outcome. They all would compete more fiercely. See the AI field -I know, bad example- where there are three big players competing, OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, plus some smaller companies such as Perplexity or X AI (Gork), has thrived with affordable -yeah, subsidized, I said it was a bad example- and rapidly growing capabilities. On the other hand we have, for instance, another “almost” duopoly between gaming console manufacturers. Assuming Nintendo plays on its own league, Microsoft and Sony are going to start raising prices because of manufacturing costs and lack of competition. Nintendo, as I said, plays on its own category, so they can afford to hold their games prices high no matter how many years pass… because with their exclusive games (Mario, Zelda…) they have some sort of “family-friendly videogame monopoly”.
What happens with refrigerators? There are many manufacturers and dozens of brands. So maybe there’s the answer. We need more competition, at many levels. Sadly, only giant corporations like Apple, Google or Microsoft are capable of offering such complex and expensive products and services… there is already a too big investment and legacy requirement to enter this mature markets. That’s why a trillion dollar company such as Apple has already said they won’t enter into the manufacturing market creating their own foundaries… but I bet that, if they had known just a decade ago what was coming with the RAMaggeddon and the NANDpocalypse due to the disruption AI companies are creating, they would have started working towards their own chip foundries.
TL;DR: in my opinion, more competition would have been better to avoid the current situation with the tech industry.
