I remember in 2007, buying my first MacBook. It came with an enormous 2gb of RAM. I asked about upgrading it. The guy leaned in conspiratorially and told me that Apple’s RAM upgrades were a rip-off, and that I’d be better of buying it elsewhere. So I did, for half of what Apple were asking.
This is a grift that Apple have had for far too long, and there’s a part of me that’s convinced that their move to soldered RAM was to stop people upgrading after the fact more than it was about SOC efficiencies.
You can buy a Ryzen 9 32Gb 2 Tb mini pc that seems to have a similar form factor. It’s capable of running 3 4K diaplays, not too shabby. at Amazon in Europe for 446€. Or, if you’d prefer, a Ryzen 5 pro 16 Gb 512 SSD for 289 Link so half the money and you get 2x storage… Link sure, no thunderbolt, but considering the specs, I know what I’d buy.