Apple has so far not gone this way, and I'm very happy about that (if anyone from Apple is reading). They do try to encourage you to log in with an Apple accou

Apple has so far not gone this way, and I'm very happy about that (if anyone from Apple is reading). They do try to encourage you to log in with an Apple account, but they don't seen to use dark patterns to do this. You can use a Mac without one but you will miss out on the store and any iCloud feature... but the machine still works fine. There is an "allow your Apple account to unlock your local account" feature, but again no dark patterns. You can just uncheck it.