I need macOS for work. Now that the writing is on the wall for Hackintosh (which I used to do regularly while purchasing a Mac every few years, most recently in 2023 and 2018, because I love that choice), I don't have a choice. I used to spend 10-20 hours per third party machine for that choice.
I don't truly mind that they solder on the SSD, embed the controller into the processor -- you're right that it's great we have choice here. I mind the exuberant repair cost _on top of_ Apple's war on third party repair. Apple is the one preventing me to have choice here, I have to do the repair through them, or wait until schematics are smuggled out of China and used/broken logic boards are available so that the repair costs what it should: $300 to replace 2 chips on my logic board (still mostly labor, but totally a fair price).
I love Apple for their privacy focus and will continue to support them because I need to do Mac and iOS development, but I will likely stop buying mobile workstations from them for this reason, the risk of repair is simply much higher and not worth this situation.
I don't truly mind that they solder on the SSD, embed the controller into the processor -- you're right that it's great we have choice here. I mind the exuberant repair cost _on top of_ Apple's war on third party repair. Apple is the one preventing me to have choice here, I have to do the repair through them, or wait until schematics are smuggled out of China and used/broken logic boards are available so that the repair costs what it should: $300 to replace 2 chips on my logic board (still mostly labor, but totally a fair price).
I love Apple for their privacy focus and will continue to support them because I need to do Mac and iOS development, but I will likely stop buying mobile workstations from them for this reason, the risk of repair is simply much higher and not worth this situation.