I'm specifically talking about the T2 chips in the laptops. The newest Macbooks can be activation-locked, just like the phones. This has already bitten legitimate owners who are trying to restore backup images, etc.
Legislation needs to step in to make it illegal for corporations to prevent resale. If I have a piece of hardware in my hands it is mine. It should ALWAYS be possible to access it. If Full Disk Encryption is used then there should be a button to reset it and start over.
Physical access should be all that's needed, and you shouldn't need to beg for permission from the company who sold you the device.
Software that locks out people with physical access from resetting a device is not an ethical, or effective, way to prevent hardware theft. It's dystopian.
And of course it's good for phones to make them worthless to steal, or else they'd be hard to use in public.