There are “tech users”, like myself, who buy a quality product and run it until it becomes unsupported. I keep iPhones about five years, which requires a battery replacement.

I’ve replaced several iPhone batteries myself - I have the necessary tools, including the opening tool. Outside of it being a fiddly job involving miniature connectors, I find that the replacement batteries don’t last as long as the OEM ones, even when bought from iFixit.

Also, the battery is glued to the back shell, and the release tapes usually break, because the hot rice bag isn’t as hot as the heated vacuum stage that Apple uses. Then you have to work a monofilament under the battery, which is an annoying three hand job, if you don’t have the stage.

Apple gets $69 to replace the battery. Given the above, that’s reasonable. But, the nearest service is an hour away. The real decision is the personal time and delay to get to and from the service place (twice, or wait around for a couple of hours) vs spend an hour to do it myself.

If the battery was OEM and came out easily, I’d do it myself, every time.

thickness I don't mind but waterproof would be sad, that said it would be weird if companies can't make sealed case without glueing everything

I don't know how much glue was involved but Galaxy S5 was waterproof and had a user replaceable battery.

There was no glue, you just popped out the back panel and took the battery out with your fingers in 5 seconds.

On the other hand, it did have a plastic cap on the micro USB port which you had to open every time in order to charge it. I'm not sure if this was a limitation of micro USB (or whatever the Samsung-specific extension next to it was) - modern phones with open USB C ports seem to have no problem being waterproof.

Tangentially, the S5 had a USB 3.0 micro b port[1]. It was not Samsung specific, but it was not widely used either.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-3-0-Cable-Male/dp/B0...

No, it was not "waterproof". It had an IP67 water/dust rating, which is inferior to the IP68 rating achieved by current iPhones.

Stop repeating something you clearly know nothing about.

IP67 is as "waterproof" / "immersion proof" as IP68. Both must withstand 1 meter immersion depth up to 30 minutes. The only advantage as far as I can tell is up to the manufaturer "The test depth and duration is expected to be greater than the requirements for IPx7": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code

IP68 is not 'waterproof', Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro is IP69 rated and has an SD card