"apple is actually ahead of the curve here"

I'd argue that old-fashioned desktop PCs were (and are) ahead of the curve. No need to wastefully throw everything away, just upgrade the components you want. A reasonable level of standardisation has allowed this to happen.

Desktop PCs might not have the polished, all-in-one usability of an Apple device, but the ability to add or remove components from a PC make them very amenable to re-use. For example, I have an older hard drive (HD) that I removed from my desktop PC and put into an external HD case. It's now used as a backup and storage device.