It's great that you have a niche use case, but that doesn't make your case the priority over the main use cases.
People would steal your wallet, your jewelry... There's a lot more value to be extracted from a stolen credit card than from a "smart" phone.
> It's great that you have a niche use case, but that doesn't make your case the priority over the main use cases.
You're taking it the other way around. The common use case for first-world software developers is the niche use case for the rest of the world. In the rest of the world (i.e. the vast majority), who can't afford buying new luxury devices, people are more concerned with getting locked out after forgetting their password (or after their kids changed it) or about acquiring a second-hand device, than about "protecting" their device from thieves.
Because this "protection" doesn't protect anything. Once your iPhone is stolen, it's gone. No iCloud lock is going to bring it back, so why prevent other, less-privileged folks from using it when you can't use it? That type of "mine or noone else's" capitalist mentality is actively harming users and destroying the environment
https://www.ifixit.com/News/34072/apples-activation-lock-wil...
These locked iPhones sold for 50-200€ are acquired by users who will turn to their tech friends/neighbors to get it unlocked. When these tell them they can't help with that (no package in Debian for that yet), they end up spending 20-50€ in a shop to get it unlocked anyway, financing a very shady market.
Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19845934
Quote from the article that sparked the discussion:
> To do this, they phish the phone’s original owners, or scam employees at Apple Stores, which have the ability to override iCloud locks. Thieves, coders, and hackers participate in an underground industry designed to remove a user’s iCloud account from a phone so that they can then be resold.
At the end of the day, if the thief doesn't get the phone unlocked themselves, they will sell the phone for half (or less) the price they would have sold it unlocked, but they're still making a buck.
Thieves will not profile a person using a premium locked phone against stealing it because it might not be worth it. They don't care about that. They will take whatever they can if only for practicing their skills.
Locking phones does not deter theft but unlocking them will offset the price of unlocking from the phone-shop to the thief increasing the profitability of theft.
I personally don't care about Apple, their phones, their M1's and their ecosystem. But acting out your premise leads to a place I don't like. And others as well. And if you think you can buy a cheaper premium phone if it is unlocked, ask yourself why thieves would continue to sell you cheaper if they know they give you a usable device?
Because I would like to inflict damage back. Stealing from me cause damage. I do not believe thieves should get a free pass on causing me damages just because they are less privileged.
Ideally, a small amount of C4 and a "remote explode" taking a few fingers off the thief would be a proper deterrent, as well as a good use of Sharia law.