Yeah, it is a valid comparison, and assuming the quality is close to par with a macbook, I think it would be worth the extra cost.

I'm someone who doesn't want to go through a new laptop every other year. I've got an M1 mac right now. I've owned it for 5 years and could easily see myself getting another 5 years of use out of it. Only problem is, the hard drive is small, I can't upgrade it. It only has 16 GB RAM, which is fine for now, but I can't upgrade it. One of the 2 USB C ports gave out on me. I can't repair it.

If I had a laptop that I could repair and upgrade that also ran Linux? I would absolutely pay $2k for it - as long as the quality is good - because I think I would save money in the long term by making a laptop like that last a long time.

I use thinkpad (T14s now, X1 Carbon and X220 in the past). The hard drive is just m.sata and very easy to upgrade. You really can't upgrade the disk on a Mac?