Comment by HugoTea

There are many things they do which Apple argues benefits their users, but end up benefitting themselves in suspiciously manipulative ways. I'm not shocked they entered a 10 year contractual agreement, and that just so happened to allow them to make a lot of profit by using a proprietary cable.

They lock down individual parts to device serial numbers, this helps prevent fraudulent repair services with poor quality parts, it also ensures Apple is always involved in the repair process and they can make a lot of money on that.

They use a proprietary RAM design, this significantly improves hardware speeds but also stops you replacing or upgrading the modules yourself. They also just happen to charge a serious premium on RAM capacity, and don't sell the modules on their own. Even if a third-party did manufacture the modules and sell them separately, they are also locked down to serial numbers.

This is Apple's bread and butter, enforcing consumer hostile practices and spinning it into a benefit, usually filled with half-truths to muddy the waters. In all of these situations, it's possible to do better by the consumer but why would they? At the end of the day they're here to make money, as much as they possibly can, and they're uncontested in their own vender hardware, doesn't mean we shouldn't call them out for their awful practices every time they appear.