It’s not about the price of upgrades though, it’s about their bundling together and the ridiculously stingy base specs that often make the upgrade non-optional. People who buy a base MacBook Air probably aren’t thinking about keeping it for 8 years or using it for heavy workloads.
Sure, but bundling them together reduces the supply chain complexity and reduces Apple's costs. If the options were more fine grained, Apple would sell even less of each model and it would be even less worth their while.
Also, I have seen lots of people on HN complain about the price itself, even if it's not what you yourself object to.
