Not sure if we are discussing different things: I absolutely think people should have a right to repair their things. I don’t think that means manufacturers should be required to make it easy. I don’t buy that Apple has deliberately made it difficult to repair. It seems to be pretty similar designs across many smartphones from multiple manufacturers. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, I think it’s the design you end up with if you weigh all parameters (cost, durability, performance, thickness, battery capacity, repairability ..) and simply rank ease of repair
last. It’s what customers want, I guess.
Apple should repair devices (including replacing batteries) for free within the warranty. When the warranty period has ended Apple should a) ensure people can get original parts if they want, so they can repair whereever they want and b) make sure that people can repair their devices in any way they want, forever, without it behaving worse than if Apple themselves repairs it.
Those are really independent of whether or not these replacements involve 4 screws and 3 steps (great) or 20 screws and 44 steps (bad). I don’t want to pay a penalty of even 1% performance weight, durability or cost to get the simpler repair, so long as it’s a $20 job, that’s all I’m saying.
99% of users of course wouldn’t repair the phone regardless of whether the procedure uses 4 tiny standard screws or 40 screws requiring standard tools. The former would just let their unofficial repair guy do it for $5 instead of $20. This is why I think it’s not a very important question.
There are a many other more important questions in the area, such as for example the stance on third party batteries, and whether it’s acceptable that some features are disabled when repairing (e.g touchID).