For me an os needs to do basic stuff by default, not by adding a billion 3rd party apps that inevitably break the next os update because they were using undocumented apis

So you make up a strawman

Sure, you can do that with (mostly paid) third party apps, but I don’t like wasting 3 days on setting an operating system in an usable state

And then add another strawman onto it, in order to make your argument make any sense. None of the programs I listed are paid, they’re all open source, and it’s just as normal as doing any of the apt installs you have to do on Linux.

Setting up my Mac is literally as simple as running dot from my dotfiles, which sets up every Mac setting, including things like making hidden files visible by default, hiding the Mac Dock by default, and more. On the other hand dealing with windows setup is a pain in the ass.