Article seems a bit unclear. Are they blocking third-parties from selling used Apple products? There are a ton of independent people (including just random individuals) selling used machines.

It keeps referring to refurbished machines, which is a fairly big distinction, at least on the Amazon platform.

Refurbished machines are sold as primary items; they have an ASIN and are assumed to be basically fungible goods as long as the specs are the same.

Used machines are the ones you find through the "Available from these sellers" subpage on an item (which will often be out of stock, once the machine isn't being sold as new). There you have to list the condition, and many are shipped directly from seller to buyer without going through Amazon at all.

I am wondering if what Amazon is doing is saying that, unless you are Apple, you cannot call a machine "refurbished", only "used". That seems... aggressive, but not completely out of line. It seems like it's letting Apple take ownership of the term "refurbished", when they should really differentiate themselves by saying "Factory Refurbished" or "Apple Refurbished" or something, but it wouldn't necessarily block resale of the units completely.

If Amazon is actually prohibiting all resale, even as "used", they are going to be making a huge giveaway to eBay and Swappa, since that is where the secondary market will likely go. The demand for used Macs isn't going to disappear, and Apple's recent trend towards higher prices is going to increase it.