How Many People Are Affected
According to iFixit, the thin flex cables are used in 2016 and newer MacBook Pro models. It isn’t readily clear how many MacBook Pro models are impacted, but the problem does appear to be fairly widespread.
That indicates that the flex cables could be a hardware flaw that surfaced as MacBook Pro models aged. There is even a website dedicated to “Flexgate,” suggesting that enough users have experienced it to warrant concern.
iFixit notes that the issue only impacts “Touch Bar generation” MacBook Pro models, but the teardown site didn’t make it clear whether newer MacBook Pro without Touch Bar could be affected too.