- If you make the SSD replaceable, many more people will replace theirs.
- Apple doesn't want to put an SSD access port into their laptops for design/strength/reliability reasons.
- Replacing the SSD would therefore entail people disassembling the computer.
- Apple doesn't want people disassembling the computer
* solution = solder it onto the motherboard.
The soldered on stuff is a recent change, and it's stupid for things like RAM, but even more stupid for things that wear like SSDs.
Very few non technical consumers, which is the vast majority, ever upgrade their computer.
Now the MBPs for the whole team need to be replaced at great cost and double the environmental resource use. Without Apple soldering the memory our IT department would have certainly just upgraded the memory. In fact, when I ran into similar issue with needing 32GB to my 16GB Dell laptop, that's exactly what we did.
Because the chargers are known to have a huge impact because of all the rare earth in them.
Case in point: the M1 Mac Mini internals are half electronics, half air. They could've easily fit all kinds of slots and modular components in there, yet they deliberately decided not to.
I mean, they're not defective, they can be refurbished.
In this case, the company actually only officially supports (leases) Windows laptops. Macs should not officially exist to start with, but are nevertheless required for iOS app development. So MBPs are handled as "extra" IT equipment. If there is no use for such a piece of IT equipment (e.g. it is underpowered or otherwise not fit for purpose) AND it contains sensitive business data (like a developer computer almost certainly does), it is actually a security issue for the company.
So for security reasons the company would actually prefer that such computer be DESTROYED when there is no use for it anymore. Sadly you can not even remove the hard drive from a MBP and sell/give it to a employee for personal use, so Apple soldering the components on the mainboard is a double whammy.