I like to tinker with hardware a little, which is why every 3 years or so I put my own home server together even though I could probably buy a cheaper ready-made solution.
In the days of my old Apple Powerbook I've pretty much replaced everything from memory, harddisk to optical drive, even though the latter definitely wasn't made to be upgraded by end-uses.
But in the last 10 years I've never had to upgrade any hardware, not even the stuff I've put together myself. The days where upgrading was a natural part of the lifecycle of a computer are in the past.
Storage and memory has become cheaper so computers are well equipped from the start, and the need for rapid upgrades in order to be able to use the latest software is no longer an issue except in very small niches.
Personal computers aren't interesting "tech" anymore, they are commodity consumer products which most of us discard after a few years.
Tinkering with your own PC is rapidly becoming a niche similar to model trains. (Or working on your own car, also completely unnecessary and doesn't yield any new insights or advances.)
It's not about tech and curiosity anymore, just another hobby. And as such, you'll never see discussions about it on HN, there are other forums for such hobbyists.
I don't know what you think HN is for, but -- and maybe I'm completely wrong on this -- hacking computers is surely part of it. We also discuss every day computing as well, of course, but not exclusively. That would be silly and uninteresting.
Maybe if you've been doing it for 10, 20, or 30 years, but even still... how disingenuous to claim that few should or do have the hobby of tinkering with hardware. Not to mention, it's the very epicenter of what provides a market for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and every breadboard and sensor therein.
You'd have just as many model train enthusiasts, if that were the largest form of personal transportation and everyone had one at home (Re: cars, car enthusiasts, etc).
My 2011 iMac came with a 500gb hdd. I decided to upgrade it to a 256gb ssd. Coming from a Windows PC background, I figured it would be a 15 minute at most installation. I even ordered the $40 hdd replacement kit from OWC, and it took me a good 2-3 hours to carefully disassemble and reassemble. The worst part was sliding the motherboard back down below the bezel. Holy shit I was gonna throw the thing against the wall.
But yes, for the most part I agree with you but we still aren't quite there yet. I think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have the ssd located in an easy to access spot like the ram is.
I had an iMac hard drive die somewhat out of warranty. So upgraded hard drive it is.
FWIW, I didn't find the iMac all that hard to get into, certainly no harder than unibody MBP. There are a lot of screws, and you have to pull the display out, but that's the cost of a sleek all in one. I did appreciate that there were no sharp sheet metal edges to cut my fingers, like my cheaper towers.
I'm not sure I'd buy another one though -- I'm disappointed with the display. It's ghosting/burning in, the backlight is uneven, and it doesn't profile worth a damn. I suspect that the issue with the dead HD was heat, and that also affects the display.
I believe the newer ones (2012) are much harder to get into. While the older models used magnets to hold the screen in place, the newer ones use adhesive. You now need guitar picks and a heat gun to get into it. See ifixit for details:
I do. When I bought my Macbook, 8GB of RAM were extremely expensive. So I waited, and when the RAM got cheaper, I upgraded.
At the moment SSD prices are still high enough that it makes sense to buy an iMac with small SSD now and upgrade to larger SSD in a few years; but unfortunately that's no longer easily possible.
I like to tinker with hardware a little, which is why every 3 years or so I put my own home server together even though I could probably buy a cheaper ready-made solution.
In the days of my old Apple Powerbook I've pretty much replaced everything from memory, harddisk to optical drive, even though the latter definitely wasn't made to be upgraded by end-uses.
But in the last 10 years I've never had to upgrade any hardware, not even the stuff I've put together myself. The days where upgrading was a natural part of the lifecycle of a computer are in the past.
Storage and memory has become cheaper so computers are well equipped from the start, and the need for rapid upgrades in order to be able to use the latest software is no longer an issue except in very small niches.