I dunno what the "wait what" is for to be honest, because you have a good point and / or a sore spot for Microsoft; MacOS users (generally speaking) trust Apple, they have a great track record with gradual OS updates and minimal surprise even when they do major overhauls, with minimal or gradual updates to their visual design over the past 24 years (Aqua with OSX, then slowly dropping the skeuomorphic / Frutiger design language for flat design over time.) They're claiming 2020's Big Sur was their biggest visual overhaul, but it was a smooth transition.

Compare Microsoft that tried various different visual overhauls in the same period, first with Windows XP (2001) leaning into the Fruitiger asthetic, then Windows Vista and 7 (Aero design), Metro (windows 8, windows mobile) and now Fluent (windows 10 and beyond). While trying to add more monetization via ads and office365 integration.

I'm not saying Apple is not guilty of the monetization, they've had three different incarnations of their cloud offerings before iCloud settled things (iirc) and they do promote it within MacOS, but it doesn't come across as cynically as MS's offerings do.