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.
The whole sales of Macs is a small portion of Apple’s earnings, but I think it’s still a lot in gross numbers.
I think it’s the sort of thing to keep a hold in case the market shifts and Apple needs to change strategies, like they’ve been doing in raising the percentage coming from services compared to iPhone sales. They’re monetizing the “ecosystem” more than ever.