Well, then it appears we have no problem here, do we? Apple does its thing and it's ok: It's explained by poor consumer laws of the country you live in, capitalism, marketing... Apple is of no fault for abusing the poor consumer laws or capitalism. It's the politicians and the society that is wrong.
Also this isn't the Dunning-Kruger effect because I have higher than average repair ability (check all the forum threads I have on debugging and repairs for a citation)
It is, I think. You are overestimating the abilities of the general public when you say: "It is repairable, it's fine. Took 20 minutes." Yet they can't even change a hard disk sometimes - when it is actually easy to do so. ("What's a hard disk/SSD?")
Let's get back to the soldered in SSDs: What do you do when they are worn out? What if you want more space INSIDE your mactop? "You should've bought the biggest option in the first place" is no excuse or justification.
No it's not right but that doesn't mean it isn't the status quo and is specific to Apple. The problem is that as performance increases, by necessity so does integration and the march of technology. Back in the early 1970s, computers were built out of discrete logic ICs. Then came the microprocessor etc. Things got faster and smaller and with closer integration. Now we have basically minimal SoC with flash attached screwed into a cast or injection moulded chassis with a battery glued in (which is incidentally required because the technology to supply the power density needed is volatile if bent) and a laminated screen. That leaves these FRUs: screen, chassis, battery/power supply, input device. Everything is built like this now from everyone because:
1. It's cost effective.
2. It allows greatest manufacturing automation.
3. It allows the form factors that are in demand.
Really at the current time it isn't worth paying someone who can repair an FRU to deal with it because they're more expensive over time than the FRU's supply cost is. So we're in a FRU swapping business now and have been for at least 20 years now.
As for the soldered in SSDs, have you ever seen an SSD fail from wearing out? We have about 500 of them, some of which are in ridiculously high IOPS servers writing 100's of gigs a day all from Intel and Samsung and ZERO failures ever. You're hanging on to an old way of thinking there I'm afraid. They are crazy reliable. Also the SSD's in the thing are PCI attached jobbies which have quite frankly insane IO speeds.
The only risk really is buying a machine without the capacity to expand to your requirements. That can go good and bad. If you don't buy enough you're screwed and if you buy too much you're down cash. I bought a 16Gb 1TiB SSD MBP in 2013 (which is incidentally still going find and holds 5 hours charge, has enough RAM and disk space). 
... I expected 2 years out of it and then upgrade. Didn't happen.
The main problem is that you have to do some forward thinking and not cheap out. There is no way I'm ever going to need to upgrade the above. If it gives up i'll split it for parts and someone can repair theirs. Ultimately over 5 years it worked out a crap load cheaper than I was expecting. Good job 
People seem to think the only cost of ownership is the outlay though. That's a big problem. Bought a nice shiny BMW on £300/month? Oh no can't afford to run it. Doh, clearly BMW's fault...
Let's deconstruct this:
"No it's not right but that doesn't mean it isn't the status quo and is specific to Apple."Nobody said that! It's your imagination! It is as I AM SAYING IN LIKE EVERY RESPONSE LATELY: That you are paying comparatively extreme prices for Apples products, that aren't even better than the rest.
"The problem is that as performance increases, by necessity so does integration and the march of technology. ... Now we have basically minimal SoC with flash attached screwed into a cast or injection moulded chassis with a battery glued in (which is incidentally required because the technology to supply the power density needed is volatile if bent) and a laminated screen."No. Nothing you stated is required by our technological state! They're just design choices you're talking about. E.g. Desktop PCs! You don't need to glue in batteries, you can make them easily detachable. Absolutely no problem. Same with everything else.
Nobody does this anymore because it takes engineering time, extra material and what not to create a mechanism that holds the battery in place or makes anything easily changeable.
They think: "No consumer cares anyway, so why waste money?" <- That is where we are now!
"1. It's cost effective."Yes. But, I am telling you over and over that you pay comparatively extreme prices for Apples products. I do not have to tell where this money goes because you seem to know that it doesn't go into manufacturing. Good, and bad.
"2. It allows greatest manufacturing automation." *savings It's all about saving money in the process, nothing else. And again: you pay comparatively extreme prices for Apples products.
"3. It allows the form factors that are in demand." *imaginedThere is no real demand for these form factors: The demand for any form factor is imagined by the marketing division.
"Really at the current time it isn't worth paying someone who can repair an FRU to deal with it because they're more expensive over time than the FRU's supply cost is."You DO realize that is the conclusion of all these issues we have here? -When the money doesn't go into production and engineering quality, but instead into the pockets of the big guys, yes?
"The only risk really is buying a machine without the capacity to expand to your requirements..."
... together with: "The main problem is that you have to do some forward thinking and not cheap out."Are you doing what I was asking you not to do? Mainly: ["You should've bought the biggest option in the first place" is no excuse or justification] for bad engineering.
SSDs ... They are crazy reliable.
Thankfully, by the time the SSD has worn out, the rest of the Macbook would have well and truly had it.
SSDs have enough write endurance to survive any normal workload for decades. When they fail, it's due to other reasons. However motherboard fault in macbooks is a very common failure and once you cannot boot, you cannot get your data out. And if SSD fails, you need to replace a whole motherboard. Modern M.2 SSDs are small enough that soldering SSD on motherboard is ridiculous.
Ok, I was wrong. I thought that could happen earlier.
Yet, that was my point: What if anything fails when everything is soldered together? FRU? Too costly in this case.
At the end of the day, this thread can go on forever and when Apple inevitably bugger up again, it'll just start over.
I will say this about the Apple fanboys and I specifically mean those who are so brand loyal to the point it makes them blind and deaf. There seems to be this attitude of "I have a Macbook and it's never ever crashed on me and it's perfect and has never had a fault" and so on it goes. To those users I say "good for you". But they are quick to block their ears and go "la-la-la" when Apple produces a poorly designed unit with widespread problems.
No one here is advocating that all Apple products of a certain model will experience the same fault, not even the haters. That would be stupid. I could go out and buy an iPhone 6 tomorrow off ebay and it might never ever have a problem, but the stats are stacked against me.
Set aside the dumb design decisions, the poorly built/put together hardware, their crappy software updates or even the way they treat their customers... what I don't understand is this strong hold Apple have of some of their customers. It's something you seldom see among PC/Android users (and there are many more of them than Apple users).
I've been a PC guy for as long as there have been PCs, but I have used Apple products throughout the years, almost all of them. I've come across some pretty shitty PC's as well, but you know what? I don't keep buying them. I do my homework and pick another brand. I gave up buying brand-name desktop PCs back in primary school, when I learnt to build my own. But as for laptops, tablets and phones, if I come across a brand I don't trust or who produce poor quality products, I don't buy them, even if I've bought them before. I honestly don't care. Right now I have a Dell laptop (and I love Dell), but it has some interesting quirks. My next laptop will probably be a Lenovo. See how that works?
Same goes for my phone, I've owned Sony, LG, Samsung, Blackberry and Motorola smart phones before. There are some I won't buy again.
When it comes time to make a purchase, I buy what's good at the time. I buy from a company who has a track record of reliability and when issues do arise, they fix them, not blame the customer for holding it the wrong way or something equally dumb. Those companies who stand up and can admit when they fucked up get my money, not because their marketing tells me.
For those reasons I've mentioned here are the reasons why I'm yet to spend money on an Apple product. Who knows what will happen in 5-10 years, never say never.
Aaah, a view of sunshine! I was lost in the mist. (That's funny because "mist" is also a german word for crap, rubbish, bullshit ...)
As I love to point out logic fallacies or cognitive biases lately, (In this case the Apple-guys fallcies) here we go:
"There seems to be this attitude of "I have a Macbook and it's never ever crashed on me and it's perfect and has never had a fault" and so on it goes. "Optimism bias or Normalcy bias
"But they are quick to block their ears and go "la-la-la" when Apple produces a poorly designed unit with widespread problems."Confirmation bias, probably Appeal to novelty evolving into Appeal to tradition
"When it comes time to make a purchase, I buy what's good at the time. I buy from a company who has a track record of reliability and when issues do arise, they fix them, not blame the customer for holding it the wrong way or something equally dumb."Called "perfect reasoning"
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