Squaretrade, which does electronics warranties, published data in 2015 on laptop warranty claims rates that indicates otherwise. They found the % of laptops needing repair increases approximately linearly with time from purchase, indicating the failure rate is approximately constant
But that will include the cheapest trash hardware, if you look at high-end series like Macbooks only a few really terrible models like the flexgate-butterfly 2016 MBP models should be that bad.
Interestingly, every Mac I've owned (other than my 2003 Power Mac G5, which never failed during the six years I used it) has needed AC+ repair in Y3. That lists consists of my 2008, 2011, and 2014 15" MacBook Pros, and my 2019 27" iMac. But I expect my experience is atypical.
Okay, 2008 and 2011 if they were 15" models then it's clear they'd fail with the graphics issue, but there were some really bad Macs with such grave defects that a lot of them died way too early. On the other hand I know people who still rock Macbooks from 2009-2010 today where maybe a USB port is broken but otherwise these Macs still work just fine. Macs without manufacturing defects should last a decade easily and that's been my experience as well.
However, that doesn't mean it's not also a good deal for the customer, at least relative to having it repaired by Apple.
Sure, relative to Apple's repair prices outside of warranty it looks like a good deal, but that's because Apple's repair prices are insane. They now charge flat rate prices for all repairs however minor the issue may be. If you bring in a M1/M2 Macbook for any issue whatsoever that requires a repair you can expect one of three flat rate prices, the first being for a minor issue like a defective speaker coming in at around $300, the second coming in at $500-$800 depending on the model for any issue with display or logic board, sometimes Apple will bill both of these combined for a single repair as minor things like flex cables might be damaged too and count as a minor repair. And the third is if any liquid damage indicators are enabled, then you're looking at $1200-$1500 (the highest price is always for the 16" MBP).
Here is one example from the real world with a repair done by Apple on a M1 Macbook (I think it was the first gen M1 13" MBP), the battery was defective and needed replacing, the Mac worked just fine still. The repair was done under warranty, otherwise you'd expect to be hit with the battery replacement fee and that's it, right? Nope, they claimed to have found issues with the trackpad and replaced that as well, and out of warranty this battery replacement would have cost more than twice the battery replacement cost coming in at over $500.
And that's for a fully functioning Macbook where the battery was swelling, which even out of warranty and even if the battery damaged the trackpad (which was still working when handing it over to Apple) should be covered by the $249 battery replacement fee.
Anything goes wrong with these M1/M2 devices and you're easily looking at $500-$1000 for every single repair you ask Apple to do over the years. For something like a $1599 base model 14" M1 Pro if it needs just a single repair out of warranty it's already questionable if that's financially reasonable and two repairs can cost as much as the entire device cost years ago when it was bought.
