I've still encountered cases like that recently — I'm not sure the situation is any worse now (at least with support incidents). It's all just anecdotal.

I think to be fair it probably depends on which country you're in. In the UK I've found their support to be downright poor, even when compared to other device manufacturers, but I'm told in the US they're better.

All those free repair and decent Apple experience are all from US. Worldwide Apple Services tends to be crap.

I even heard in some part of the world Apple started to paid commission to Apple Retail Staff for products sales. ( They used to pride themselves the lack of conflict of interest and to provide the best services possible )

I had a similar anecdotal story just a couple of months ago. I've spilled a few drops of juice on my 16" MBP keyboard, which was enough for three keys to become sticky. They've replaced the keyboard and whole top case chassis for free without any comment and I got my laptop back in three days.

It was the best tech support experience I've had in my life.

I wonder if this boils down to which level of support contract you buy?

For what it's worth I had no additional support outside of a standard warranty..

It's one thing for Apple's product quality (or quality control) to be less now that Steve Jobs is no longer with us. But it's another thing for customer-hostile dark patterns to become Apple's norm. :/ (I was subjected to the worst customer support experience of my life with the #KeyboardGate defect.)

Jobs was one of a kind.

Counter-anecdote: I have spilled liquid on MBPs more recently (latest is 2019 MBP with touch bar) and didn’t need to bring them in for repair as they kept working after having been thoroughly dried.

Seeing reports about old laptops breaking from the same, I suppose the upside is that they are becoming less fragile.