It could be argued that it was the Intel Ultrabook initiative that killed laptop modularity. Although that was a reaction to the MacBook Air and PC makers would have likely gone down that route, Ultrabook or no.
I feel a lot of the repairability issues and poor longevity we have for electronic devices can be laid at the feet of Apple. So many "innovations" from them directly resulted in poorer device servicability, and other manufacturers were forced to follow suit, because that's what the consumer "wanted".
And the consumer only "wanted" these things, because marketing and paid reviews told them they wanted it.
