> You can go and buy a framework laptop.

> In fact, now is the best time in the last 20 years for either

> having soldered RAM isn’t that big of a deal in reality to most people.

Precisely. This whole sub-thread is a response to sacralising Apple for their M chips, pretending there is no compelling alternative, and subsequently giving Apple a free pass for consumer-hostile/commercially-dubious practices.

At any point in time, Apple has the lead, there's no argument there, but if you can afford to wait 12/18 months, you get about the same performance in a repairable/extensible package. That makes Apple's performance less stellar, especially when the same people laud those devices' life expectancy (my daily-driver ThinkPad is specced from early 2017, in 2025 it wouldn't care having bought it "old" in 2018).

I get it, this is an affluent forum, people like the latest and greatest, and a lot of Apple's marketing strategy is about validation and status, that's not terribly rational and healthy, though.