The macbook air m1 here is 1100 euros, the mac mini is 800 euros.
So the keyboard, trackpad, battery, screen and form factor are worth 300 euro according to Apple. So that LCD screen they put there even though has a high res, is definitely not worth half the price of the laptop.
The screens arrive at the factory by boat, in an optimally-packed container. Replacement screens are individually packaged and delivered in low volume by courier.
Apple must first examine the laptop, which isn't free, then put in the replacement, and do acceptance testing, because they warranty repairs, and even if they didn't, not repairing something and claiming it's a repair is bad press.
Maybe they make profit as well who knows, but it's easy for me to believe that the assembly-line price of a screen triples by the time a repair is installed and the user gets the laptop back.
Starting to look like some of the M1 Airs got a bad batch of screen glass, which is a separate matter. If so, here's my prediction: Apple will do the same thing they did for the butterfly keyboards and eat the replacement cost, and people will be complaining about it ten years later.
Unlike the butterfly fiasco, I'm not betting on this being a design flaw, it's either the law of large numbers or a badly-tempered batch of glass.
None of that is relevant to the cost to replace an uninsured screen which broke under user-error conditions.
Similarly, the average pay of Genius Bar employees and Apple repair techs is semi-public knowledge that can be found on the internet.
Nobody is believing that it costs Apple $400-500 in additional expenses _per screen_ to repair MacBooks.
Like it or not, in a lovely city called Shenzhen, it costs you $200 to get your macbook pro's screen replaced in a regular roadside repair shop just next building to your fancy apple shop.
As a low skill job, you get to master the procedure by watching online video tutorials, interestingly, that is also a viable business in Shenzhen, they have such "online schools" to get people trained for such jobs and some of their videos are free -
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLCQRIZLWDzzzhgKwSWBoRg/vid...
And locals can import those screens right? Little bit of markup. Anyway let me know what the actual price is where you are, from someone who will actually do it, and isn't Apple, all of this is legal and the service is available. That will give us a point of comparison.
That seems like a pretty normal price for recent MacBook screens: https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/MacBook_Pro_13%22/Screens
Where are you getting this number from? Why not $50, or $300?
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-Laptop-Apple-Scre...
How do you know if it is even a remotely comparable screen qualitatively?
Is Apple Fleecing you?
https://medium.com/macoclock/is-apple-fleecing-you-a682c851a...
Could they be dead-pixel factory rejects that aren't even like-for-like? "Touchscreen" seems suspect.
No, LCD screens are pretty affordable these days. You can buy yourself a portable external display with a 4k samsung panel for about $200-250 depending on where are you. Such portable displays have extra batteries included, so extra $ costs included.
I am like this too. I will flip my lid over something like this, but about half the time upon further reflection I will come to the conclusion that I was being irrational, and simply upset at how much things objectively cost or how long things take, or whatever.