If I recall correctly, this is pretty much exactly the strategy that Louis Rossmann was calling out when Apple first started their 'repair' program. He was right.
Bottom line is we should mandate in the law that if you sell a product, you need to provide specs and schematics of all parts it consists of so that third parties can build and sell replacement parts of same spec and quality.
I'd be happy if the chip manufacturer was allowed to sell me the same chip at all. There are chips, made specifically for apple, that are far from any secret/nda stuff, since there are billions around in peoples pockets, but the manufacturer is not allowed to sell them to consumers.
Louis Rossmann mentioned this too, where he has to buy an apple powerbank, to remove one chip (charge controller?) to fix an iphone, and then throw away the rest of the powerbank, because the manufacturer is not allowed to sell him a chip worth a few cents.
I’ve never understood his crankiness on this subject: the concept of ‘right to repair’ is entirely synthetic.
Government intervention in markets is usually predicated on some kind of ‘market failure’ and I don’t see how that is the case here. There is plenty of competition in the phone market and if the option to have a phone repaired by third parties was really desired by consumers then someone would sell such a phone.
It seems more like Rossmann is angry there is not a product-market fit for his services. Something like that.
