Must be a sheep then and won't discuss...
On the professional side: have always owned high end windows OS laptops & PCs (Sony, Dell top top "hardware"). And on the personal side always have had Apple products.
And after 13 years of side to side comparison:
No matter how, a similar product in terms of features will be 30% more expensive at Apple's (a top notch sony VAIO vs. an Apple MBP): correct.
BUT
All my Apple products lifetime last 2 to 3 times longer then the others...like my G4 lasted for 6 years while I had to dump 2 vaios 2 dell in the same time (fan problems, lagging, RAM, trojan, viruses) etc...
I will not talk about ease to use, much better exploitation of the hardware by Apple, etc...as I am a sheep...
Coming back to Lwien's concern/topic, yes Apple has ethical issues (minerals used in the hardware, tracking, data base, etc...) and everyone believing any multinational company has none is a fool, I know you are not Lwien (this is valid for any android mobile with a Sirf 3 GPS card, Facebook, Google, Windows, Porsche tracking your moves in your GPS Cayenne....should I go on?).
Anyhow, be aware this has been written on a sheep's not cheap laptop...LOL!