I'd be surprised if the monthly charge is a problem here. We're talking about a machine that costs more than 6 years worth of subscriptions (for the entire suit

I'd be surprised if the monthly charge is a problem here. We're talking about a machine that costs more than 6 years worth of subscriptions (for the entire suite, business price, ~1/3 less for just premiere pro, business price) for the lowest tier machine (which isn't all that great for the stated use case). Maybe there is a technical reason but the story I've gotten from people I know doing this is that they are looked down on if they're PC users. It could be that Apple's software is that much better but it seems much more likely that they're charging what they know they can based on the generally stubbornness folks have around their software and workflow. I partly can't blame them, if your job is in a creative space the last thing I'd want to do is constantly rework a workflow and deal with the machinery itself rather than the content and output.