I’m not convinced Apple came to the conclusion that it ought to do this for business reasons.
Just last week I upgraded the memory in mine, no repair kit required, just a simple screwdriver.
I've used a (presumably leaked) 2008 MacBook Pro 15" service guide to disassemble, mend the bent case (due to a bad fall), change the hard drive with a SSD, and put my machine together.
I think this is unfair, because precisely what the OP is saying is that in e.g. Lenovo products these instructions have been readily available for customers, sometimes even in the very product manual itself. I have an HP tablet from around 5 years ago where the disassembly instructions came with the printed manual. Also, it requires about 3 tools only, all of which are so standard that except for a suction cap I think they are almost in every household. Compare to this teardown of a much thicker laptop... even for replacing just the battery, I wouldn't have the tools, much less the balls to do it. It's not a surprise that iFixit still gives them a rather low "5" score.
I just say that these guides are always produced, but not generally made available to consumers, and that's bad.
I wish every electronic equipment is shipped with a User's Guide and Service Manual out of the factory.
However, both to protect service businesses and due to more integrated nature of newer devices, self-service is becoming more impractical every day. Hope right to repair changes that for the better.
Also, there was an Ask HN about "Declination of Everything", and people objected vehemently. Why we are having this debate now, if nothing is declining?
> There is of course the elephant in the room: parts pairing. As it stands, despite the increasingly repairable designs, the software locks that Apple maintains will result in waste as otherwise-useful components end up in landfills instead of being repurposed. The useful life of our devices will also be limited to Apple’s hardware support—whatever they decide that may be. Once support is dropped for a device, those software locks will remain in place which means even if a third-party manufacturer is willing to step in with replacement parts, those parts may be restricted in functionality.
> It took us 20 years to get these manuals ...