I’m of much the same opinion, and I refuse to buy certain categories of gadget if the battery is not replaceable with a commodity type. This is becoming increasingly difficult.

Note that this doesn’t have to be AAA/AA batteries, either. The reason so many little gizmos use lithium-whatever rechargeable batteries is because the energy density of lithium is way better than consumer alkaline batteries (with some exceptions that I’ll get to; keep your shirt on) and because they’re available in a lot of form factors – particularly flat ones – that are easy to jam into the product.

For instance, I have quite a few flashlights that take rechargeable lithium chemistry 18650 cells. Some of these allow for charging the battery in the light with a USB cable or whatever, but the important point is if the battery takes a shit I can just take it out and replace it with another one easily and cheaply. I cringe every time I see the backpacking dudebros recommending “slim” USB-rechargeable-only lights to each other like they’re all the best thing ever, but which will inevitably be landfill in a year or two when their little nonreplaceable batteries give up the ghost. Hikers look at me like I have a fish for a head when I mention I use an 18650 light. “But it’s so heavy!” Sure, and it gets 4 times the battery life of your little stupid light, and it will last forever. I also still have a digital camera that runs off of AA’s, and several other oldschool odds and ends of that ilk.

If you are using a gadget that takes consumer AA or AAA cells, by the way, you can now get lithium rechargeable versions of these which are in most cases superior to both disposable alkalines and rechargeable NiMH cells. Whatever you do, don’t run everything you own off of disposable alkalines. That’s just stupid.