Just because something or someone is successful doesn't mean all decisions that are made are optimal, close to optimal, or even not an active detriment.
The famous example is people conflating Steve Jobs being an asshole with being successful.
I generally agree with you, but in this generic case, phones are actually truly packed to the max. Similarly to how you could easily fix your older car with just a few tools, modern engines are so complex that such home-twinkering is impossible. Phones go in the direction of having less and less separate parts, which is bad from a repairability pov, but the reason why these gigantic screen sizes are the new norm is also the side-effect of having to put n cameras, 5G, a huge battery, LiDAR and what not into a comparatively small body, while at the same time making it dust and water proof.
Agreed. It's like saying mid-engine cars are intentionally made complex to repair to make more money of service whereas it's more likely that the primary driving factor is better performance & handling and the extra service revenue is an added benefit.
Yes, but those are all choices, and they're all vendor-driven. It's not users demanding these things - users just select from what's available on the market.
And here, it's not even the case of all those weird nerds complaining about missing headphone jack. Go poll normies about screen sizes. Regular people complaining about phones being too large is pretty much a meme now.
(Engineering-wise, phones do get thermal advantage from the current form factor trends - thinner but larger -> more surface area. But I suspect it's more than compensated by the extra heat from the larger screen.)
The famous example is people conflating Steve Jobs being an asshole with being successful.