Apple goes Silicon and- effectively- eliminates ALL competitors for RAM & SSD.
They eliminated third party RAM because the substantially changed their architecture, and offered something no one else is offering.
Pricing leaps to 3X to 5X vs. competitive market pricing. Consumer wanting an Apple computer can no longer shop around for RAM & SSD. It's pay the "company store" price or don't buy at all. The word 'Exploitive' and the tradition of "Company Store" tends to go together. Where there is a single seller of anything with no competitors, pricing tends to run high. Bring in some competitors and prices tend to go down.
When you can point to another vendor offering a unified memory system that takes third party RAM then you can argue that Apple did this to lock out other options. They offer a product that has major advantages for many users (not only substantially more VRAM enabling things just not possible on small VRAM GPUs, but eliminating transfers between the two sides). Again, point me to any GPU from any vendor (not even limiting your search to laptops) that offers 128 of GPU VRAM at any price.
You also seem not to understand that there is competition, just not with third party RAM. Apple sells complete systems. If people do not feel they are getting value for their money, they will not buy them, as you yourself have made clear.
But all things I write are from a consumer perspective...
No, you write things from your perspective ignoring all differences between those items you compare. When you can show an actually comparable system (with unified memory or even with VRAM that was comparable) your criticism would hold more weight.
And it's hard to know market rates for RAM & SSD and then look at Apple's rates for the same. For only the 8TB SSD upgrade alone ($2200 per Apple) not including the Mac too- just the SSD portion, I was able to purchase a fairly robust whole desktop gaming PC with 10TB of SSDs and 32GB of RAM.
So again you completely negate your earlier argument that Apple has no competition and so can gouge consumers. You used to be a Mac purchaser and now you are not. While you may not believe this, but Apple has to consider this when making pricing decisions. Apple margins have not charged in years, so it seems unlikely that they are making 3-5 times as much on RAM and SSD as they were before, unless they are making much less on something else.
Price Silicon and macOS itself higher since those are the unique elements here, not RAM & SSD... which are- basically- computing commodity elements.
Until you can show someone who is building systems with a unified memory architecture that offers third party RAM, you argument is irrelevant.
Net result could be the same high prices and profit but now the "premium" is associated with what is unique about Apple computers (the parts NOT available from competitors)... not in 3X-5X pricing of the same components available for PCs.
A unified memory architecture is unique to Apple and unless you can demonstrate some counter example, requires non-removable RAM, and RAM that costs what it costs. You keep saying: ”the same components available for PCs” yet you have provided no PC example that has a unified memory architecture with less expensive RAM, nor one with on package memory that is removable, nor one with as much VRAM.
3X-5X RAM & SSD pricing doesn't feel very classic Apple-like... but it certainly delights the shareholders in modern AAPL. As a long-term Apple consumer- pretty much a 2-decade Apple everything guy- it just rubs me very wrong... and is evolving my halo'd view of Apple as such decisions persist.
In
2010, Apple sold a 4GB upgrade for their MacBook Pro, doubling its base RAM for $400. Today, Apple sells an 8GB RAM upgrade for their MacBook air (doubling its base) for $200. Seems like they have lowered their cost of an upgrade, not raised it (just comparing the cost to double the base, not what that actually gives you). Inflation adjusted it is $565
vs. $200, so you are right, it is not very ”classic Apple”.