After my futile efforts to get it repaired at the independent shop and the Apple Store (they never came for me even with my appointment and I wasted an hour sitting in that place for no reason), I bought a third party battery and a set of guitar strings to replace it myself. I was successful but the battery was garbage so I had to return it and go back to the original swelled battery to be able to use the laptop albeit plugged in; I gave up and asked work to order me a new MBP instead. Total waste of time: 3 hours plus a perfectly good MBP going probably to the landfill thanks to a difficulty that Apple created for no good reason. Edit2: the guitar strings were used to saw off the nasty glue strips holding the original battery, along with d-limonene as a solvent to weaken their deathgrip.

In contrast, replacing the battery in my HP Elite x360 was a piece of cake - no nasty glue, no proprietary screws, and oem batteries available everywhere. HP sent me the battery under warranty (shipped next day) when I called them to buy one and I was able to replace it in minutes. Now that's a repairable product. Edit: clarified that HP in fact covered the battery cost under the included 3 year warranty.

Edit3: want to say that it was a bit uncalled-for of you to assume that I couldn't do the replacement myself. This was a work laptop (i.e. not my property) so I didn't feel it was my place to dink with it.