Macs only get support for three years now. So you're paying between $1,000 and $53,799 for a computer every three years instead of just updating the operating system in the same period of time.
So yeah, your right... This is inaccurate. It's not $99 any longer, it's starting at $1,000 every major update. If you're outside those three years, too bad. No updates for you, and in a year or less many of your favorite programs will get updates you can no longer ever use again.