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I nevertheless had my M2 MacBook stolen on BART in San Francisco last month. This wouldn't have happened if it were universally understood that stolen MacBooks are worthless. My interaction went smoothly, but this could have gone badly.

If all buyers checked that the activation lock was disabled before sale, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I prefer the reduction in crime that activation lock promises.

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If you were around when phone theft was a thing on BART and Muni you'd never sit near a door again :) It was comical how bad it was and how little the govt did about it other than demand apple fix the issue. Would have been trivial to have an undercover cop on their phone near a door all day - they'd have caught tons of criminals.

That said, at least for phones activation lock was game changing. Not sure about laptops, maybe they can't ID them or fewer activate lock or there is a way to use them in a claim scam (ie, damage and "return" laptops while reselling the real one?)

and in a decade? What if apple no longer maintains this system? Will all these m-series macs be bricks if they change hands for free or are legitimately recycled?

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