Consumers are the ones who have insisted — with their wallets — that they prefer phones without user-swappable batteries.
Option 1:
- has a removable battery, headphone jack and/or stereo speakers
- security / OS updates stop in 6 months (or never happen or are years behind)
- camera is OK
- getting kind of slow
- proprietary version of Android with bloatware
Option 2:
- no removable battery, headphone jack or stereo speakers
- security / OS updates for 2-3 years
- camera is better in low light
- it's fast right now
It's like evolution, except there aren't enough options and the timeline is too short and bad features are too coupled with good features.
Companies have switched to non-replaceable batteries because it's good for their bottom line. It's definitely market forces that are in play, but not the ones in the textbooks where consumers hold all the cards.
> Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.
The use case for a replaceable battery is for emergency situations, not just when the original stops holding a charge. I would much rather go back to that time when I could discreetly slip in a replacement than have to use a phone attached to a giant brick with a flimsy USB cable.