It’s less the repaired retail market (which they control on Amazon at least) and more the “I could repair this for cheaper than half of a new phone” lost sales. They’ve been quietly letting that group slip by for years of progressively more expensive to “repair” (read, “swap modules”) while people who could get a basic repair done for cheap are pushed to buy new phones instead.
What are the holes that can be poked into this as written? I firmly believe Apple is still against repair that would eat into their new sales. So where does this, as written, give them the room to keep that going?
Is it just that they can continue to make their “screen issue = replace whole top shell of laptop” and similar the default and draw the line there, standardizing high-cost repairs even if it’s just a wire or small component replacement? If they don’t allow ANY standard repairs more granular than swap module for module, they don’t have to provide more granular resources than that. I’m not fully up on what repairs Apple authorizes.
This is definitely a win to some degree, though. But when your opponent goes to your side and draws a line, that always gives me the chills.
That’s definitely my hope.