I mean this seems very reasonable from Apple's perspective. They're trying to avoid their brand being tarnished by bad repair shops with questionable repair skills cutting corners with cheap and unsupported parts. Given how large the resale market is for Apple products I would even say that this is an extremely positive policy because as long as the machine boots you can be pretty darn sure your MacBook is just like…
Unless they own the computer, it's not reasonable to disable it because their service is not used. Taking steps to actively, for no technical, or ( for me ) functional reason is such an customer hostile idea, that I can't really understand how it can ever be seen as reasonable? Their brand being tarnished is of no concern to me as a consumer and user of their product, and neither should it. They do with their brand a…
I think you're missing something. Apple could very easily make mid range devices at lower prices but there's not much point. Apple's mid/lower tiers are the previous year's high-end models. Apple's engineers are very open about this if you ever get the chance to talk to them. I think it's a pretty slick system -- Apple has to design and manufacture fewer models, everyone gets a high-end device, nobody can really tell you got yours cheaper, and their devices remain luxury goods while being available at low price points.
So for consumers in the market for a secondhand Apple devices I see this change as extremely positive.
Again, I think the right middle ground would be allowing you to whatever you want to your device but at the cost of having it be unbranded.