Upgrading a hard drive has almost always been a simple thing with macs throughout time. I have done it on almost every single mac I've ever owned. To remove that flexibility now (for no other reason than greed?) is an abomination.
I instinctively wanted to call you out on your BS here, but you used "almost", so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. That being said, I once owned a laptop called the iBook (white) G4. For those that don't remember them, the first model was released in 2003 (Steve Jobs was alive and running the company at this time btw), and that was the model I bought. A little after my warranty expired the HD failed. Replacing the HD on that thing was the biggest pain in the ass I've ever had to deal with with any laptop I've ever owned (and I've owned a lot, including Windows laptops). This is the nonsense I had to do:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iBook+G4+12-Inch+800+MHz-1.2+GHz+Hard+Drive+Replacement/166
I didn't do this until I sold it later and instead got by by just running an external boot drive. For all intents and purposes, for the majority of people out there who buy and use Apple computers, replacing the HD in this was not going to happen. If you want to raise your hand triumphantly and say, "that looks easy, I've done much worse before, blah blah", well, good for you, you're in the minority. I also have family and friends who graduated from NYU/Harvard. They are the minority, they don't represent the majority.
Apple got a lot better at this later on, culminating in the 2008 model, which to this day, is still my favorite Apple computer, but it always irritates me when people bring up Apple's past as if it were the height of the Roman empire and they could do no wrong, because that isn't the Apple I remember. My first mac btw, was a Performa 6200CD, so I've been on this boat for awhile now. As others have mentioned, the writing has been on the wall for awhile now that this was the direction they were going at, and those who are perceptive have had years to prepare for this. If this goes against your principles or disrupts your work flow in some way, maybe it's time to look at other options, but in my eyes, Apple is all-in on this approach, and this isn't going to change unless the leadership is shaken up dramatically.
