Yeah, when I saw the update I canceled, logged out and ran zypper dup from a tty. Rebooted and logged into a Plasma 6/Wayland session. Went swimmingly.
I think this kind of update is where "atomics"/immutables really shine. Install the update on a new separate snapshot and activate it at boot.
One doesn't have to use the feature and it's not like it's going to be felt, nor noticeably use any resources when not in use.
Read up on .pacsave/.pacnew files, the distro might still work if an update creates these but if you don't diff/integrate them manually your OS might slowly "rot". So watch out for these when running an update. You'll see them less often if you don't change stuff much yourself.
Consider using BTRFS and test how to rollback, in case you need it.
I don't have a mac but I do know some of the history as I used to: macOS used to be around $130 but macOS Snow Leopard (2009), Lion (2011) and Mountain Lion (2012) were around $20-$30. Since Mavericks (2013) onwards it has been free.
Libreoffice is available, you can install any application you want on a mac provided it's built for macOS, just like you can on Windows and Linux. You don't have to install it through the Store either, you can just download it from wherever it is available and install it.
Business model for the mac is that Apple sells hardware, they also have a few applications one can buy such as Final Cut Pro.
The business model for application developers is up to them.
There are tools/package managers for compiling, installing, and upgrading open-source software on a mac, MacPorts and Homebrew.
You can't run AMD64 Windows applications but there are both free and paid virtual machines (Parallels, UTM) that can run Ubuntu for Aarch64 and Windows Aarch64 in a VM. Funny enough ARM Windows has a translation layer so it can run AMD64 applications. Don't expect great graphical performance running Windows in a VM. You might also be able to run older AMD64 operating systems (Windows 7) within UTM but it'll be slow.
Neon is bleeding edge showcase for Plasma, might not be good for beginners.
Hassleback potatoes with butter.
Pretty close to default. Using SF Compact Display fonts and Newaita reborn icons. Most of the time I have a bunch of windows open and I rarely see the desktop, except when I start the day :)
I'm a bit confused, OS upgrades are free... I've been back and forth between iOS and Android a few times, I avoid lock-in to either ecosystem by using 3rd party cloud services like Bitwarden, Signal, Dropbox free (10GB), etc. I can switch over in half an hour. Most recently they started supporting the open standard Matter so they can use same smart home things as Google or Home Assistant.
As for "bloat", well there's a few apps I don't use, most can be uninstalled, if not it only takes up a bit of disk space, not RAM/CPU so they don't impact performance and I keep my phones for many years. Right now I got an iPhone 13, it runs like new, it'll last for a long time.
Are we upset about what they call support staff? All companies do weird marketing stuff, it matters not.
I don't use a Mac, I run Linux on my gaming PC. If I didn't game I'd be equally happy with a Mac, the new hardware is great and the OS doesnt get in my way. In contrast with Windows where one feels like a hand-puppet.
Yeah, I also had apps like Steam native break once or twice due to library updates (such as Mesa) - the downside to rolling distros. However, the Flatpak version continued to work so now I only use that. I don't use mods though.
I'm now gravitating towards treating my rolling distro a bit like an immutable; more Flatpaks, avoid user repositories.
Wait I though it was Windows that had a KDEy feel? Anyway it shouldn't matter whether UI's have some common features if they're good, only whether we like one regardless. You enjoy GNOME, great, that's a very slick desktop too.
Plasma has a lot of things that puts it above Windows in my book.
I loved that period where WWW was buzzing with naive excitement and USENET was still popular for having conversations, it was a good time.
The appearance and how you use it is a very important part of a browser, also there are things like sync of history/bookmarks/etc. and "send a tab to Firefox on another device" functionality.