> I really don't understand why Apple is apparently incapable of making these laptops use standard, replaceable m.2 NVMe SSDs.
Coz there's no standard M.2 form factor NVMe SSDs without a controller chip, and even if you can find one, there's no standard protocol to talk to it.
Recall that 3rd-party drive manufacturers are really bad at properly making Self-Encrypting Drives (lots of HN stories previously, just search for SED). It's very likely a factor for Apple to decide to implement its own SSD controller inside the T1/T2 chip on recent Intel Macs, and directly on die on Apple Silicon, so that Apple can fully control the data written to raw flash and be confident in its own implementation of encryption.
Charging a premium for more capacity is a standard Apple practice anyway, and the fact that such security-focused approach makes it unavoidable is a side-effect.
Aside from encryption, commodity NVMe SSDs are also really bad at correctly implementing idle power management. The Linux kernel is constantly adding to its list of drives that cannot safely use the deepest idle state because on many systems the drive won't wake back up after being put to sleep. Apple might be able to have a bit of an easier time since they control the host system so tightly, but they would still end up having to accommodate plenty of SSD bugs/quirks.
Apple could have made their own replaceable SSD boards.
It looks like they want their devices to become obsolete sooner which seems to be a good business idea but there is a risk of upsetting many customers. Time will tell.
Coz there's no standard M.2 form factor NVMe SSDs without a controller chip, and even if you can find one, there's no standard protocol to talk to it.
Recall that 3rd-party drive manufacturers are really bad at properly making Self-Encrypting Drives (lots of HN stories previously, just search for SED). It's very likely a factor for Apple to decide to implement its own SSD controller inside the T1/T2 chip on recent Intel Macs, and directly on die on Apple Silicon, so that Apple can fully control the data written to raw flash and be confident in its own implementation of encryption.
Charging a premium for more capacity is a standard Apple practice anyway, and the fact that such security-focused approach makes it unavoidable is a side-effect.