“Consumers” are not a monolith.
The explanation couldn’t be more simple: choice. Do you really have no clue why consumers would be pissy about reduced choice.
I think it’s great if manufacturers make phones/devices with removable batteries, and even greater if people who want those models buy them. Hell, I might even be one of those people!
…but I also understand that everything in design—particularly product design—is a series of trade offs.
I would love there to be a variety of choices, so that I can independently decide as a consumer whether I want a device with a removable battery, with the gains/tradeoffs that that entails, OR a device with a sealed-in battery, with the gains/tradeoffs that that entails. The choice should be mine, and, by extension—the market’s.
Spare me the tinfoil hatters that believe that devices that have replaceable batteries have ZERO compromises/tradeoffs as compared to sealed-in batteries. That the ONLY reason to choose sealed-in batteries is “planned obsolescence”, and that they are “sure” that Apple or any other company could design a device that is equal in every other respect other than a replaceable battery vs. not. Anyone who claims the latter has clearly never engineered/designed anything in their entire life, and doesn’t understand what “opportunity cost” is. I doubt any one claiming that has ever even made something as simple as a recipe, if they can’t understand that every choice has a domino effect on the rest of the result.
Yay for replaceable battery devices, but BOO to *only* (easily user-serviceable) replacement battery options, enforced by law, which limits consumer choice.