Upgrading an M4 Pro Mac mini's storage for half the price

Not worth the hassle and the faffing. Just pay Apple their tax. Your time is far more valuable. And if it’s not then you have bigger fish to fry.

Apple won't upgrade the storage for you aftermarket, as far as I'm aware. There's no tax you can pay them to take your current machine and bump the spec.

Frankly, this is exactly the sort of head-up-ass attitude that will end with Apple being smacked around by investigatory commissions like what happened to John Deere and Microsoft.

I'd rather start with replaceable batteries in smartphones.

You can replace the battery on an iPhone yourself these days. Apple's terrible design makes the process involve shipping specialized hardware to your joke, for which you need to hand over a good chunk of change in collateral to be able to use, but it can be done.

My suspicion for their shitty process is that it was set up purely so Apple can tell regulators "see, consumers can't be trusted to replace their own batteries, look what it takes", but they do offer a programme for it.

The stupidest part about the whole thing is that the official URL looks like a total scam: https://selfservicerepair.com/en-US/home