Fully agree with the sentiment, and at the same time I think it’s a lost battle. Even more so with more niche tech like cameras (where one is usually invested into an ecosystem instead of having just one piece of gear that can be sold on its own 5 years in - like a laptop).
All the boards I currently rotate between (3 at this time) have factory soldered hotswap sockets. I haven’t done much soldering myself, none on keyboards in particular. For PCBs that come assembled or unassembled I prefer to pay a bit more for assembled because it’s generally not a huge difference. Unfortunately some don’t offer that option.
I have a solderable PCB of one of the first custom boards I got a few years back and I still haven’t gotten to building it - I couldn’t commit to a specific switch, the PCB doesn’t support soldering hotswap sockets, and adding millmax ones seemed too much of a hassle. Moreover at one point they announced they’ll supply hotswap PCBs, so I’m probably going that route.
Can someone explain how something as generic as a keyboard can be a subject to patents?