Hosting your own services. Preferably at home and on low-power or shared hardware.
Also check out:
He'll have people renting oxygen in 10 years. If you don't earn enough social credit points, they'll shut your oxygen off.
I think that's the best option if you want to play PC games but you have a Mac. Steam is pushing for Windows game compatibility on Linux, but most Linux users run computers that were shipped with Windows (i.e. they originally gave money to Microsoft). Apple has been half-assing it for years. Game Porting Toolkit exists, but basically the best way to play games on Mac bare-metal is to pay a subscription to Crossover, which costs about the same as GeForce Now, which lets you play on a more capable rig. Good if you can handle the latency (this is going to depend on where you live). And if you don't mind a subscription.
It also begs the question if you should be a Mac user if you're into gaming. I've always been a gamer, and I've always liked Apple's computers. I also have an Xbox and a Switch. I do not presently subscribe to GeForce Now (or Crossover).
The M4 Mac mini was $480 around the holidays. It's more like $500 now. That's got 16GB of RAM, but you can't upgrade it. It's all on one chip, including the built-in 256GB SSD (which you should expand with external options). So computers can be had for not that much money. If you want something beefier, I think in the $1500 range, you can still get a bit more out of something running Intel, like an i5, especially if it's a year or two old. I just like Macs, but they're not always the best deal.
If the price is reasonable enough I can see it for gaming in general. Without gaming my laptop can have much more modest specs and I don't really care about games running in the cloud unlike my documents and web browsing that I would prefer to keep control of.
That's fair. I have a Mac laptop as well (base M2, MacBook Air, 16GB RAM, 1TB storage) and... it plays Cyberpunk. Game looks like ass, there's no crowd hardly at all, my 4th gen Xeon ran it better (I think the Mac gets more frames but the Xeon made it look better... also had a 3GB graphics card). I'd rather play it on GeForce Now where it looks more like it does on my Xbox... but I'm just gonna play it on Xbox.
Blue Prince is another one I have on Mac. Plays almost as well as Xbox (far simpler game) but it's a bit choppy. Stray looks/plays good, though.
Windows laptops are kinda ass to me. I can see the argument for the desktop if you're a gamer, but IMO Windows laptops are a complete bust. I'd point someone toward a base M4 MacBook Air (maybe bump the storage to 512GB) and have an awesome desktop environment, and use GeForce Now for gaming. Of course Linux guys would not agree with that. Last time I tried Linux on a laptop, I ran into tons of driver issues. I'm sure that's not the case in 2026. I'd still prefer macOS on a laptop. For a desktop, I like my Mac, but if that Xeon rig didn't die on me, it would be running Linux now. Likely Ubuntu.
Buying a computer the manufacturer pays Microsoft for isn't exactly paying Microsoft when that's how the manufacturers choose to handle it.
If it was the user's choice instead of the manufacturer's that would be different, but it's not. I'm not responsible for them buying a copy of windows with their money any more than I'm responsible for it if my mechanic buys a copy of windows with the money from changing my oil, unless I'm paying extra for a mechanic who charges extra to do that.
Also, nobody needs cloud gaming. You can play Fallout New Vegas on your phone, with mods, and pirated for $0
Not my phone but I get what you mean. I have an iPhone. I actually do have a Galaxy S10, so I'm kinda curious about that project. (I'd rather play Fallout 3 though. Also I don't need to pirate it, I own it on GOG, Steam, and Xbox.)
There are ways to install Linux on many Macs. https://asahilinux.org/ for example.
True, but I don't just like Macs for the hardware. And honestly, ARM64 boxes with an SoC and a fan aren't really that exciting... hardware wise. I like macOS, which is probably why my favourite Linux shell is GNOME (though later ones moved a bit away from being just like macOS... still prefer it to KDE. I'll use either though).