Maybe they do, but evidently consumers accept it and are still willing to pay for it. I don't know whether non-standard screws are a trade-off that Apple needed to make a better product, but it's a trade-off consumers are willing to accept. That indicates that on the whole, Apple's non-standard behavior is still more valuable to consumers overall than their less successful standard competitors even if it is horrible to a minority.

Only a competitor that consumers like as much as Apple but also has standard screws can prove Apple wrong. Or, alternatively, maybe a day will come where consumers care about standard screws/repairability as much as you do. Until then, consumers will continue wanting Apple's non-standard stuff over the rest of the industry's standards, and what consumers want is pretty much the only thing that matters (with few exceptions, of course).

“Apple's non-standard behavior is still more valuable to consumers overall than their less successful standard competitors even if it is horrible to a minority.”

You must realize this doesn’t follow at all right? Almost no one is even aware if their laptop has proprietary screws or not when they’re purchasing one. It’s not listed as a feature on laptop comparison sites or in reviews. People choose Apple for many reasons but it’s not because they prefer non standard screws.

You’re confusing people choosing to buy a product with them endorsing a specific feature of that product that clearly goes against their own interest for no benefit.

Somehow you seem to be claiming that manufacturers and software developers can be forced to produce a better product than Apple by the government.

That seems implausible, but it also seems like they’d have just been outcompeted if that were true.