Raspberry Pi is actively preventing enthusiasts from upgrading soldered memory to a larger configuration even when the replacement chip is technically compatible. The company says the restriction is intended to discourage unofficial high-capacity resales.
The funniest thing about this is that Apple used the same excuse to defend parts locking. And every other company that limited the user’s right to repair and upgrade their purchased products.
It’s all BS. A company cares only about money, and they couldn’t care less about your product performing slightly less than optimally, if it ever does. Apple did it for profit, car manufacturers did it for profit, John Deere did it for profit and Raspberry Pi did it for profit.
There’s a bit of a difference in that your iPhone is (used to be) more likely to be swiped for parts (since the whole phone is unuseable, but the screen e.g is still worth a couple hundred) than anyone is to sell counterfeit raspberry pis for profit - and if anyone did do that, why’s that even a problem? I know someone who successfully upgraded a Macbook Air to 8 GB back when they had the 4 GB option and that was also soldered RAM. All for his personal use, but the thing continued working and it’s trivial to implement a check for original config by serial number.