They did add back non-cloud support a while ago after the cloud forcing didn't go over well, but it is a second-class experience.
The day after I set my UDM Pro up as non-cloud, it corrupted the login somehow and I had to factory reset it and redo all settings (as it hadn't been running long enough to run any automatic backups first). I capitulated and just set it up again as a cloud login to avoid having the same fiasco at some random point in the future again.
I immediately regretted going with the UDM to save (quite) a few bucks over a OPNsense/pfSense appliance to fit my requirement of handling a full 10G of WAN.
I will admit having the app to monitor usage remotely is a somewhat neat trick. I find the firewall configuration in GUI obtuse enough to be next to unusable.
> I immediately regretted going with the UDM to save (quite) a few bucks over a OPNsense/pfSense appliance to fit my requirement of handling a full 10G of WAN.
As someone who bit the bullet and sold all their UniFi gear on eBay and switched to OPNsense and Ruckus, I'll tell you that it's been absolutely worth it.
You are saying that the "why" of Apple doing these things is purely "user hostility", which is highly implausible.
A company does not make decisions based on a pure "will to be evil".
They probably think that the reputation hit from not allowing repair is less damaging than the reputation hit from users dissatisfied with repairs. Other design choices can be for cost cutting in design or production.
So sure, it is not nice for the user, but the reason is not a desire to spite users. They likely simply think the additional costs, tangible and intangible, of being repair-friendly are not worth it.
I really do think you're ascribing emotion and malice to decisions where it doesn't make sense to do so.
> Shutting down iOS emulation projects seems spiteful.
No, it's because Apple "pays" for OS development by selling hardware. Emulation projects cut into that. It's not spiteful; it's a logical business decision, regardless of whether or not we like it.
> Adding code and microchips to enforce serial paring of batteries, screens and camera modules to the device it was originally installed in... is a cost cutting measure?
This absolutely can be the case. What is the engineering cost of supporting third party components?
What happens to apples image if a crucial calibration is not performed after swapping a component? They might lose that customer forever because “Face-ID doesn’t work”.
What is the cost if your PR image is damaged as a result of third party battery fires? “iPhones explode” would be the headline and third-party batteries would be the footnote.
Coinbase can disable your withdrawal/sending ability at any time on a whim.
Their support is email-only and has a backlog of months. Try taking a look at /r/coinbase for examples.
There are some very good reasons to put your crypto somewhere you control. I am in the process of moving everything I had off of Coinbase after they silently disabled my send/sell ability, but not purchase/receive, without ever providing a reason. Others were not so lucky as I was for them to reply to my support ticket after only 6 weeks of this status. None of their FAQs or support emails acknowledged the exact problem correctly or plausibly answered any of my questions as to why.
I host my own email, and I got nothing but huge amounts of spam from .xyz domains, so I manually increased the SpamAssassin score for just .xyz to +4.0, as KAM was only adding 0.75 for it. It's the only TLD I've had to do that for.
Unfortunately for the people with legitimate uses, for email admins it's just a really easy (and arguably necessary) shortcut to block a ton of spam.
I use this scheme (company@mydomain.com) and one that I remember blocking for this reason is Aliexpress/Alibaba - aliexpress@mydomain.com was rejected so I use ali@mydomain.com.
No idea what sort of security this is supposed to provide.
I host my own email server, and .xyz is one of the 2 or 3 TLDs I went in the config files and manually blocked since nothing but spam comes from it (and lots of it).
Definitely would not recommend using it for your personal address.
No perfect pitch for other instruments.