The engineering talent to build supersonic planes or moon rockets also was readily available. But that doesn't mean that they were viable business strategies for profit-maximizing companies. Sometimes engineering better products has to come from government mandates, not c-suite mandates.

I think this implication that removable batteries weren’t a viable business strategy is not true in any way.

It’s not like a supersonic jet or moon lander. All phones had removable batteries before the iPhone. All laptops used to have removable batteries.

Older devices built with worse technology had things we don’t have now.

And why do you think did these things disappear?

Is it not obvious? There's a business equation being made that keeping the batteries internal encourages new device purchases.

Replacing the battery in an iPhone costs $99 and takes hours to days of time where your phone is unavailable.

Or you can just trade it in and pay nothing while your carrier subsidizes it and bills you monthly with 0% interest.

The customer is given an incentive structure that leads them to the maximum profit route…obviously that’s what businesses want, and why every industry has regulations that constrains business to live inside some basic rules.