I thought the SSDs in MBPs had been non-removable for a while now. I guess I misunderstood.
They have been removable until now - there haven't been many 3rd party upgrade options (don't think there were
any since they switched to PCIe), but at least the
potential is still there. There was also the potential to:
(a) if the logic board failed or the whole machine was irreparable, move the SSD to the new logic board/machine with the data intact
(b) if the SSD failed (and SSDs do have a finite lifetime, even if they're not faulty) just replace the SSD. Now, the only "repair" is a new logic board.
These are now machines that you throw away when Applecare ends.
Folks, as someone who has been in the industry for a while (probably longer than most have been alive), let me be clear. DO NOT STORE EVERYTHING ON YOUR LAPTOP.
Wise words of experience.
Other wise words of experience: life doesn't always go to plan and any backup scheme needs to be "belt and braces". This is one less chance to retrieve that vital file that hadn't got backed up yet. If you're really serious about backups, this probably means that you need to take an
extra backup to get back the redundancy.
Apart from that, if you have to replace a machine it is sometimes far more convenient to just swap the hard drive over than restore from a backup.
Then there are scenarios where you have confidential data on the machine and need to take the hard drive out for separate disposal (maybe to comply with regulations than to address any actual risk). I can see this getting these macs blocked from some institutions (who have only just got to grips with these scary SSD things). Looks like full-disk encryption is going to be obligatory, which itself (if the encryption scheme is any good) poses a risk of data loss (password recovery schemes are the weakest link in an encryption system).
...and, the big problem, if you do decide that you'd rather sacrifice a bit of portability and good looks for repairability/reliability,
Apple have nothing to offer you.