I noticed that AppleCare, which use to be a one-time purchase of 3-year coverage, is now offered as an annual purchase that can be renewed indefinitely. Presumably this means that, as long as I pay my $150 rent, they will replace my logic board, with its failed SSD, for free?

Maybe a deductible, but otherwise I have to assume yeah. That’s not cheap though.

I suspect they began soldering it because the cable connecting the disk drive had a lot of problems in older MacBooks. Soldering may have been an easy fix for that.

I hate the soldering, too. I'm just offering an explanation that may make some sense given the context.

What cable? As far as I can recall, everything not directly soldered since about 2013 was ssd mounted to motherboard using either M.2 or a similar proprietary connector. I suspect it was Cook-ish financial engineering and that trademark Apple hubris (that they finally got over to re-add ports in the most recent MBP).

Here's an older thread on the cable: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7794520

This was pre-2013. So perhaps the proprietary connector was a reaction to the cable?

I like your Ockham razor reasoning, but given the history of this company, it would be very difficult to defend this claim. Soldering the SSD and memory made the device unupgradeable (in contrast to pre-2013 models where I have currently have 2x2TB!).

pcie and nvme ssds use ports that are similar to ram slots there is no more cable involved.

And 2.5 inch drives can and often do have ports directly mounted on the laptop motherboard. If you don't want to use a cable, then you simply don't use a cable. Nothing else changes.

It's less the cable than the connector, so, similar trouble with nvme ports (and ram slots, for that matter). I've barely had exposure to supporting laptop hardware, and have seen "thing shimmied loose" or "contact corroded" as the root cause of problems more than once.

I don't think it will be the price of a new machine, it will be the price of a flat rate repair which is a fixed price for any sort of work past a certain point (as far as the genius bar worker described to me at least). For my 2020 laptop it could explode in a fireball and Apple will repair it for $418 before tax, my flat rate for this laptop.

680 Euros quoted from the apple store in berlin for a 2012 macbook.

Everything apple is vastly more expensive in europe, can't be compared to US contexts. You pay a few hundred more at least for iphones too. Seriously, a good population of people actually fly to Portland to stock up on apple gear, and fly back to Europe or India or other places. No sales taxes in Oregon too so you save even more, sometimes its enough to pay for airfare compared to buying in California even with 10% sales taxes being somewhat typical there.

I don't think it would turn out a plus if I fly over to get it serviced.