Something bad about minimalist and streamlined designs:

Either the difficulty, or the impossibility of ‘fixing’ it, ‘upgrading’ specific components, and issues with longevity.

For example, once your iPhone is outdated, it is outdated. No ‘upgrading’ certain components of your iPhone. After purchasing it, you cannot upgrade the camera module, the processor, the memory storage amount, etc. Actually the same goes with MacBook laptops– after you purchase it, you cannot upgrade practically any of it.

Another problem with RICOH GR cameras– they all seem to eventually stop working, break, after just ~2-3 years. For example, my original RICOH GR went kaput, same with my GR II (the lens stopped retracting), and now even with my GR III — the lens is having focusing issues. It is an issue with the minimalist design — because the GR has a lens retracting mechanism, it easily breaks (as it did with the film cameras like the GR1-film cameras). Same went with the Contax T-series cameras, my film Contax T3 had an issue where the lens blades would get stuck when trying to open and retract. Once again — it was a design thing designed to make the camera slimmer and more compact, but it eventually breaks, gets stuck, etc.

Thus the question on my mind:

How do we balance striving towards a minimalistic design, while still offering inter-changeability, fixability, and up-gradeability?

Computing?

When it comes to computers, whether laptop or desktop, assuming you get a Mac … it seems the optimal strategy is get the most maxed out version of whatever design you like, in order to *not* have to upgrade as long as humanly possible.

For example I got my refurbished maxed out MacBook Pro (13 inch, Touch Bar) from 2017 (a generation old), and I got it maxed out. The good thing, it still works well.

Also, because I bought it refurbished, I was able to max out the storage as well (1 terabyte). Also a good idea, given you cannot upgrade the storage after the fact.