It's just sensationalism. Talk to some people who own macbooks these days that came from windows laptops of the mid and late 2010s, the difference in build quality is night and day. My macbook pro didn't cost any more than any other windows laptop I've ever bought and is the only one that didn't have some catastrophic issue in the first two years of ownership (blown out speakers, frayed proprietary charging cable, broken keys, bulging battery, cracked plastic body etc).
Even in cases of design flaws I've never heard of someone having to pay to fix them even well outside the warranty and applecare period. Similar rampant design flaws in the world of plastic laptops just go ignored.
They did. They gave free repairs to everyone with broken keyboards and stopped using that design.