[bradstewart]

I will completely admit that is the main reason I ever replace my phone.

It usually ends up being more expensive to replace the battery (even doing it myself with an iFixit kit) than to get a new one with carrier subsidies and whatnot.

[appplication]

It seems like an alternative option could be available then: if you sell phones without user replaceable batteries, it could be mandated that the manufacturer is responsible for subsidizing costs such that replacing the battery is comparably priced to the cost of a replaceable battery.

That seems a lot more reasonable to me. There are a lot of legitimate technical and design reasons for why batteries are not user replaceable today.