Variety and regional specialty are good! This article seems to be complaining that things grow well in one place and not another place. Breed your own apples then!
There aren't any apples besides honeycrisp that I know I like for eating out of hand. The market wants better produce all around and most things you find these days were bred for qualities that are good for the supply chain instead of the taste and health of the consumer.
If the apples everybody likes don't grow well in your climate, fund research into finding new varieties that do.
There's no "curse". The best things will not suit everybody's tastes or needs. In fact it's a pretty good indicator that you're doing something right if some people really don't like it.
I suspect it's "improvements" in storage that are to blame. All Granny Smiths are clones from the same tree, and they were grown successfully in many different places, so I don't think climate is the problem. Probably it's some new storage technique that lets them keep longer without rotting, at the expense of taste/texture. I see problems with bananas too that I think have the same cause, where they turn directly from green to brown, and I don't remember that happening ten years ago.
There aren't any apples besides honeycrisp that I know I like for eating out of hand. The market wants better produce all around and most things you find these days were bred for qualities that are good for the supply chain instead of the taste and health of the consumer.
If the apples everybody likes don't grow well in your climate, fund research into finding new varieties that do.
There's no "curse". The best things will not suit everybody's tastes or needs. In fact it's a pretty good indicator that you're doing something right if some people really don't like it.