I remember in 2007, buying my first MacBook. It came with an enormous 2gb of RAM. I asked about upgrading it. The guy leaned in conspiratorially and told me that Apple’s RAM upgrades were a rip-off, and that I’d be better of buying it elsewhere. So I did, for half of what Apple were asking.
This is a grift that Apple have had for far too long, and there’s a part of me that’s convinced that their move to soldered RAM was to stop people upgrading after the fact more than it was about SOC efficiencies.
I’m no expert in business, but I guess that maintaining the Mac side of the company goes a long way towards the popularity of the iOS side. What they make from Macs might be tiny in comparison, but it all helps towards the amount they make from iPhones and iPads. It’s all symbiotic, y’know?