These are as good or better than the majority of PCs, though not yet Macs, and improving. But what you gain in freedom, privacy, and informed consent is priceless. Enjoy the golden handcuffs if feature X is more important to you than respect. It may be, who knows.

In the case we're talking about it's only about sending money to Microsoft one-time in the transaction, and the product itself comes with no handcuffs.

You pay with your data and self-respect, dealing with a micro-abusive partner. This continues as the purchase cycle repeats, including the tendency to get locked into proprietary software contracts.

You don't, because you install Linux on it immediately.

That hasn’t been enough in almost twenty years. Most things are in the cloud now. Try running OpenSnitch for a demonstration.

There have been numerous examples of malware and spyware in proprietary firmware.

Best to clean house completely, starting with hardware you can trust. And everyone’s purchases compound due to investment.