[Chatting]

I don't find the "theft prevention" argument raised by many of the comments here particularly convincing.

If the concern is to prevent the resale of stolen devices or parts, Apple could simply provide users with a way to report the device as stolen (e.g. via iCloud.com), which would put the serial numbers of both the device and its parts into a blacklist. Problem solved.

Instead, the current system effectively assumes that ALL parts coming from a different device must've been "illegally obtained", which is nonsense.

You can do theft prevention without actively making independent repair shops' lives miserable. But Apple's goal is to make independent repair shops' lives miserable; theft is just a pretext. Just look at their track record, from the humble pentalobe screw all the way to the repair program NDAs.