> Apple 3.0 wants recurring services revenue like a crackhead wants crack
While this is true (to my increasing chagrin), having an Apple ID in and of itself doesn't cost you anything. It does create an account that you can then tie charges to.
I don't, however, recall this quite rising to the level of what I'd call a "dark pattern"; IIRC when I set up my M1 MacBook Air not that long ago, the "Enter your Apple ID" had a "Skip this step" link that was pretty easy to find.
On Macbook the "Set Up Later" is lower left of the dialog box, so it does require swiveling your eyeballs in their sockets until your attention lands 2 inches from center. Kind of an off-white pattern, maybe?
It’s not a dark pattern at all. The step that appears immediately before this one is the one where you can choose to set up accessibility features. The skip option is in the bottom left on that step as well. The skip option on that screen is the option most people will choose, so a) everybody will already be primed to know there’s a skip option in the bottom left by the time they reach the Apple ID step, and b) it seems clear that this is just the design language for the setup wizard and not Apple attempting to hide the skip option. Unless you think Apple wants to intentionally trick people into setting up accessibility features as well?
> While this is true (to my increasing chagrin), having an Apple ID in and of itself doesn't cost you anything.
Privacy.
You can't get an Apple ID without an email and a phone number.
When you enter it during the machine setup, it ties that identity to that hardware serial, which maintains a persistent TLS hardware-serial-linked connection to Apple at all times, letting them know in what cities and at what times that phone number's owner is using their computer.
While this is true (to my increasing chagrin), having an Apple ID in and of itself doesn't cost you anything. It does create an account that you can then tie charges to.
I don't, however, recall this quite rising to the level of what I'd call a "dark pattern"; IIRC when I set up my M1 MacBook Air not that long ago, the "Enter your Apple ID" had a "Skip this step" link that was pretty easy to find.