alt Hacker NewsA chassis is 10% of the cost of the laptop. Reusable chassis just to put new hardware in isn’t something the average consumer is interested in.
Also, buying a new mainboard every few years and putting the old mainboard on a shelf is a lot less sustainable than buying a complete new laptop and selling your old laptop to someone.
Replies
The place where the framework design really pays of is the ability to trivially swap ports. most laptops have the usbc on the motherboard so a warn out connector is a $800 repair. Even those that have separate daughterboards for IO typically will be a ~1hr+ take everything apart to fix. With a Framework, replacing a worn out connector is ~$15 and 15 seconds.
You can take the old mainboard and slot it into a cheap case and run it like a slim pc.
I agree with your point on chassis/mainboard matching but wrt "putting the old mainboard on a shelf," Framework does have some cases for bare mainboards made by coolermaster and I think the 3d printing files are available.
It's not just the chassis, it's also the screen, storage, RAM, ports, speakers, battery, and so on. And there is lots of demand for old mainboards, they sell pretty quick on Ebay. More sustainable to only buy and sell the part you need than the entire laptop, especially factoring in shipping costs. Plus the mainboards can be used like a mini PC.