The point isn't even lost revenue. That Apple can swallow. That's not going to sink them. But they had sufficiently many really _bad_ generations (like 4 or so)

The point isn't even lost revenue. That Apple can swallow. That's not going to sink them. But they had sufficiently many really _bad_ generations (like 4 or so) that people _had to_ start thinking about how to move out of the Mac-universe. And that requires significant amounts of investment that you cannot easily recover. And that means that once Apple comes up with a non-sucking Mac, it's by no means clear that they get _back_ that business. If they did that intentionally, then they took a very risky bet that paid off. But I really don't think anyone would make that kind of bet.