alt Hacker News1996 is not now. This comparision makes little to no sense.
I'm sure if Apple provided support for installing your own OS on their M series laptops it would be incredibly popular. And I don't need to guess at this using weird 1996 research on microkernels because Asahi Linux exists and clearly there is interest in it.
Indeed, Apple from 1996 would not released Tahoe, most likely.
We don't need research because QNX, L4 and many others on embedded space do exist as well.