It's also worth considering that it extends the usable life of the machines. In some companies, older high end machines that are still in good condition are recycled and passed down to less demanding users - e.g. developer machines may get passed down to tech support.
For personal users, it means that passing it down to a family member may no longer be an option.
In addition, the lack of upgradability has tanked the resale value of lower end Macs - so lease companies aren't recovering as much value, and consumers machines are depreciating faster than Macs of old.
It's not just buyers remorse. If you use the machine for work and buy something under-spec'd - especially in RAM, you lose money by being less efficient with a slower machine.
Even then, it's getting more and more difficult to justify the increasing gap between Apple pricing and say - Dell or Lenovo. Almost $1k in it now for equivalently spec'd non-base MBP vs XPS15/X1 Extreme, and the gap just gets higher as you need higher requirements.
Let's have a look at what Apple have done since 2012.
1) Inflate the base prices of the machines and attempt to justify it via non-optional "features" such as the touch bar, wide gamut displays, extra thunderbolt ports, obsessively thin designs, T2 chip.
2) Solder everything, requiring customers to buy the specs they think they'll need in ~3 years' time upfront, when prices are at their highest. Look how expensive 1TB of flash was 3 years ago vs today, for example. Heck, in 2008-2012, several Apple machines could be upgraded to beyond their original BTO capabilities thanks to technology advancements and firmware updates by Apple at the time.
3) Where they didn't solder storage in the 2012-2015 machines, they used several different proprietary form factors for blade card SSDs when standardised form factors have existed the whole time (mSATA, M.2 SATA/PCIe AHCI/NVMe).
4) Removed the ability for customers to restore machines to working state either in the field or in a timely manner, and pushing customers toward Apple service and AppleCare.
5) Literally glue in the one consumable item in the machine (battery) that is almost certainly going to fail before the usable lifespan of the machine, pushing the price of a battery service up dramatically, reducing the economical lifespan of the machines.
6) Reduce serviceability of other components likely to fail or get damaged over time such as the keyboard and trackpad by riveting, glueing, sandwiching etc to ensure older machines are uneconomical to repair as soon as they can be, pushing customers toward buying a new machine.
This is a company that is doing everything to take away your choice as a customer, trying to turn expensive computers into disposable appliances. Don't try to justify this crap - just say no.
All the above, combined with the design flaws almost every 2016+ MacBook has (butterfly keyboard, flexgate, staingate, display connector issues, T2 chip integration issues), the seriously declining quality of Apple's OSs, the removal of useful features (MagSafe!, sleep light, external battery status meter, IR remote, non-type C ports, SD reader), have me now in the position where I not only don't want to buy any of there new MacBooks, I'm actively encouraging others not to as well.
Me, a once huge Apple fan whose personal portable machines have been Apple almost exclusively since the 90s. Whose OS of choice has been OS X/macOS since Jaguar. Who used to go out of his way to explain why Apple machines were worth it.
Completely agree. I've been saying this since 2012 when the Retina machines came out, and skeptical since 2009 when they moved to non-user-replaceable batteries in the MacBook Pros.
I don't think I've actually ever had a non-Apple main notebook, and that goes back to the 1990s!
That said, I only tolerate the 2013-2015 rMBPs, use one for my main personal and work laptops, but the soldered RAM pisses me off (a lot, because my personal machine only has 8GB and my god is it hard to find a 16GB model for a reasonable price in the used market), and the proprietary storage irks me. Thankfully 10.13 supports NVMe with an adaptor, which to me basically confirms that there was zero reason for Apple to use the proprietary stupid thing in the first place.
As for any machine they've built after 2016, well, I don't want them. I don't want a butterfly keyboard with no travel that breaks with a skin flake. I don't want screens that stop working because they use a flex cable connector that's too short. I don't want a touchbar if it means no function row. I don't want to give up MagSafe. I don't want to give up my SD card slot. I don't want to give up USB Type A. I don't want a massive trackpad, and I don't want the fscking T2 chip.
In fact, the only things on the >2016 machines I do want are the faster CPUs and GPUs, the better quality displays, and Touch ID!
... As for Lenovo though, they're slowly into Apple 2.0. Have you seen the T/X x90 and X1 series? Soldered RAM. At least they still make the X1 Extreme and P series.
For personal users, it means that passing it down to a family member may no longer be an option.
In addition, the lack of upgradability has tanked the resale value of lower end Macs - so lease companies aren't recovering as much value, and consumers machines are depreciating faster than Macs of old.