Agreed.
I'll add that in order to make people break free from it,
I think one of the most important aspects for gaining wider use is top-notch
useability (or idiot-proofability).
People do not want to have to fix their computer, ever.
Everything is just plug and play and works.
Apple controls the full chain,
so it's easier to have something that rarely breaks (and is taken care of).
It's a serious advantage (which goes with the image of very high
quality/snottiness), but it's still a golden cage, no doubt about it. The few
advantages in useability will never be worth the price to pay (not money, but
privacy/freedom etc.). But most people around me won't be willing to spend
half the time and energy I'm still spending to control my computing as much
as possible.
One thing that would be interesting would be to compare help forums of free
software and proprietary software and calculate a percentage of issues
encountered related to the number of people in the user base.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the percentages of issues is lower here.
