It’s really not. Other companies with socketed RAM also upsell, they are just limited in how much they can ask because the customer has the option to DIY adding more RAM. So the cost these companies charge is roughly the price to the customer of upgrading their own RAM, plus a bit extra for the convenience of not having to do that.
For example, Framework upcharges by something like 20-50% for RAM and SSDs when comparing to equivalent parts. It’s not just Apple, all OEMs do it, but Apple can charge much more because the user can’t easily replace either on their own.
Since everyone is doing it, we should not call it out and just accept those insane margins…
My point is it’s not unique to Apple, so saying “don’t buy Apple because they do X” when literally every other computer company does the same thing is a poor argument.
That’s really not the fight we should be having, we should be fighting for a right to repair, which would mean we’d at least have a chance at an alternative to their overpriced services. Even if upgrades are complex, if customer and independent repair places have access to parts, someone will find a way to do those upgrades.
