Is 8GB RAM laptop even relevant to this discussion? You seem to be going off on the “Apple doesn’t provide enough RAM with their base models” rant which is a completely different discussion. Regarding soldering the SSD, many manufacturers do it and it’s certainly not good practice for the environment.
I never said Apple is the greenest company in existence but they are also not the worst like the original company implied and they are certainly not forcing early retirement of their products. On the contrary they are doing the opposite by providing software support even 5-6 years after purchase.