Welcome to the comment thread, to the apple employee who replied to me.

Honestly, you think quoting the number of Apple stores that exist in the US is a valid rebuttal to a clear example of anti-self-repair gatekeeping by Apple? Get lost with that. What are you even doing on this website?

Absolutely not. Proprietary SSD that’s linked to the T2 security chip, so not only do you HAVE to buy the new SSD from Apple if you want/need to change it out, but you also have to have the repair done by an Apple technician because of the security chip. Should’ve lost multiple points for that. 7/10 would be a fair score.

Surprised that you have it a 9/10 with the SSD being:

A. a proprietary design with few (or zero) third party options for purchase

B. Tied together with the T2 chip making user replacement impossible