No surprises here. Just like the lockdown on iPhone screen and part replacements, Macbooks suffer from the same Apple’s anti-repair and anti-consumer bullshit. Battery glued, ssd soldered in and can’t even swap parts with other official parts. 6000$ laptop and you don’t even own it.
As someone who generally makes a point to buy laptops with as much upgradeability as possible, I ended up going with an M1 Pro then M2 Max MBP.
I really don’t like how much Apple charges for RAM and storage and that I’m stuck with 32GB and 1TB until I buy an entire new laptop, but I just can’t ignore how ridiculously powerful and efficient Apple Silicon is for programming, compiling, and even limited gaming.
It also helps that it’s made of metal, unlike most PC laptops at similar prices. I’ve always had terrible luck with plastic bodies: broken hinges, broken traces on the motherboard from excessive flexing, etc.
In my fantasy utopia, Apple would have slots for adding extra storage and “slow” RAM to all its computers, but that’s not happening.
I have a 2011 MacBook Air and it isn’t supported anymore but I’ve put Fedora Linux on it. It’s snappy and the track pad is still fantastic.