I think you are confusing the benefits of Chromebooks in general with Google's Pixel Chromebooks. Aside from the Pixel line of > $1k Chromebooks are usually $1

I think you are confusing the benefits of Chromebooks in general with Google's Pixel Chromebooks. Aside from the Pixel line of > $1k Chromebooks are usually $150-$300 with a couple "premium" $500 models. Chromebook's being tied to Google's services is a great feature for the easily replaceable vast majority of Chromebooks that are given to students, grandparents, children. They turn on in seconds and take basically zero management. Every time I open my wife's mac there are 5 updates waiting to install because she can't be bothered to click on the notification. I take the Pixelbook (and earlier Chromebook Pixels) to be Google's attempt to do what people are criticizing Apple of forgetting to do: remember the power users. They don't plan to sell many of them but they want the option to be out there for a developer who might install linux on it anyways but also might take a stab at packaging their app on the Chromestore, or put it on the Canary channel and submit early bug reports. If a couple especially price insensitive casual users buy them that's just a bonus. It might also have the effect of catching people's attention who then go on to buy a lower price Chromebook. Imagine a casual laptop shopper wants a small nice laptop. They look for a Macbook / Air because they are small seem pretty capable and have nice commercials. They also notice this Pixel because it's in the same price range and other search filters, so it must be similar, right? They find it runs this strange "ChromeOS" which is really just a browser. Come to think of it that's all they really need, what other Chromebooks are there? Ohh look here's one that does everything I was planning on doing with the Macbook for $300. This is not the typical HN reader, but I'd wager a good many laptop purchases work like this.