Thunderbolt drives are almost native speed so unless whatever work you are doing is heavily IO bound, external drives are cheap way to boost storage for most people.
Sure, Macs should not be so restricted but unless government take action, that's not going to happen.
Why are you mentioning external SSDs? We were talking about how difficult Apple makes it to swap internal drives.
External drives are not a replacement for internal drives. I have a laptop for a reason, and on crowded trains and planes needing some desk space to plug in dongles, huibs, and external drives just doesnt cut it.
Notice how you specifically chose the mac mini for your example, the easiest upgradable machine in the lineup.
iMacs and macbook pros on the other hand are significantly more difficult. Apple could easily rectify this but choose not to, so that you are more likely to buy their overpriced upsells on the initial purchase.
RAM isn’t cheap but it’s not awful, or as bad as it once was, especially in their laptops. One of the primary things that has kept me from buying a new Apple desktop or laptop is honestly SSD pricing.
It’s absolutely ridiculous given how cheap 1TB or 2TB drives are. And generally, in my experience, the ones Apple uses have had subpar performance compared to what’s available for the PC market for less than half the price. Not to mention their base configuration machines usually have subtly crappier SSDs than a tier up.
I haven’t bought a new Mac since Apple released the M-series. I’ve wanted to multiple times, but the value just isn’t there for me personally.
