For what it's worth, all of the systems that Apple has shipped with the M1 are replacing systems which also did not have replaceable components and could not ma

For what it's worth, all of the systems that Apple has shipped with the M1 are replacing systems which also did not have replaceable components and could not manage incremental updates. The main difference that I see is that the M1 chip is much faster and more power efficient than the systems it replaced (as well as much more expensive systems, for that matter; see M1 Air vs. Macbook Pro). I suspect that means that people who buy the M1 systems that Apple is selling won't replace their laptops as soon as people who bought x86 versions. Your point is taken, but this is a trend that Apple has been moving towards regardless; it's not something that's new to the M1 Macs. You haven't ever been able to swap out your motherboard or processor in a Macintosh with very few exceptions (including the Xeon Mac Pros), and we've yet to see what an M1 (or M2 or whatever) Mac Pro would look like, expandability-wise, anyway.