| I don't like your attitude here, because ultimately its harder and more expensive to mitigate against these types of failure than it has been in the past. First, on Apple devices there are more software-induced failure modes than there had been in the past, and many of these failure modes are far more difficult or obscure to recover from. An OS update bricking your system in a way that Time Machine (or a disk image or similar) couldn't recover from was incredibly rare until rather recently. Second, Apple devices have become so integrated and locked down it's now impossible to use some of the historical strategies to get yourself back up and running faster in the event of an unexpected failure. For example, you can no longer take the drive out of your current device and stick it in a replacement device to continue working. You've gotta make sure you have a perfectly working backup system to do that now, and even that takes waaay more time then the old-school drive swap. We're still not at the point where it's easy to shift your entire life from one machine to the next unless everything you do is cloud-based (which isn't the case for most). Third, Apple's devices in particular have become harder to repair. They have more proprietary features than they did in the past, and a less friendly attitude towards repair than in the past. Apple don't release detailed documentation or repair manuals on how to e.g. revive the T2 chip, and AFAICT some of the tools needed to diagnose and repair Apple devices are internal only. It's now also impossible for all but an SMD repair shop to replace certain components if they fail because they are now soldered to the logic board. This, combined with the turnaround time for repairs on Apple products being ridiculous, has put even more pressure on people to have more robust backup plans than before, and penalises those without these plans moreso than in the past. Forth, Apple's devices have become more expensive in the first place - or at least, there are now fewer options for folks to get the machines they need from third parties via upgrades. I typically work in smaller businesses and with freelancers and contractors, and many of these folk used to buy lower end models and upgrade the components over time as their needs improved and components got cheaper. With soldered storage these days it can also be more difficult to find a suitable machine to buy e.g. used while you wait for your main machine to be repaired. Need a 1TB device? In the past, you could pick up any used machine on the market of approximately the specs you need, and simply swap in aftermarket storage. Now? Well, you're limited to the tiny portion of Macs originally sold with 1TB drives. There may be some way to use an external drive for this, but damned if I can find instructions on how to do so on Apple's website. What I can see however is a disclaimer that Macs with a T2 chip might be more difficult to use external startup disks with. I'm sure I could figure it out eventually, but I'm pretty sure your average freelancer would struggle. So while ultimately yes, you as a professional can do things to mitigate the circumstances of any single point of failure and should do so where it makes sense, from where I sit this is an increasingly difficult and time consuming process. And all of that extra difficulty has been forced upon its customers by Apple. |