For me reviews act as curation. If something is 7+ on one of my favorite review sites, i’m going to listen to it. A very useful service in a time when the music stream is seemingly endless and as you say, almost free.
A good measure for an Apple product was for me always: it makes tech disappear. That was always the differentiator, I feel: it doesn’t feel like tech and it doesn’t look like it.
As somebody who worked for the European Commission, and a european national government, I agree with your sentiment, but the harsh reality is that government divisions in generally work on a shoe string budget, when it comes to decisions like these. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a “best effort given the circumstances” move.
Side comment: I respect the author’s right to choose words that ring well to them, but jeez, as a non native english speaker, reading this, i am happy my device has a dictionary function.
Still doing weekly live dj sets with my macbook from 2013, editing in Logic, researching music online, listening to Spotify,… Except for the battery, there is nothing wrong with this device of more than 10 years old.