I'm not sure if it was so rare, perhaps it depended on your role or location. I suppose developers in engineering used MacBooks less than those of us who worked in consulting, where they were quite common for customer work. We had a choice, though, and there was no judgment about which work tool we preferred.
I'm not sure on what's going on today, I left the company around the IBM acquisition.
I’ve never received a debit or credit card in Norway without a magstrip. One of the points of having one is to use it in places abroad where chip or contactless isn’t implemented. It’s become thinner but the stipe is still there.