I doubt it’s company policy to go around recommending a dustcover. Probably just something that the helpful support person tells people.

Can you imagine a process where Apple takes that recommendation and walks it up the chain internally to get it offered alongside the repair for free? Not a good look.

In fact Apples official support documentation tells you to not use keyboard covers https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203671

Leaving any material on the top case (keyboard and palm rest area) could result in damage to the display when you close it.

That is an interesting twist. I hadn't thought of that, and display is surely an expensive repair.. which reminds me, I need to repair the bezel on my macbook pro..

Apple handed out free cases for the iPhone 4 for a while to mitigate issues where the cell signal would drop when you held the phone a certain way. This type of action wouldn’t be unprecedented.

They made and sold the cases though before it became a workaround.

They let you get third party cases valued at up to ~$30 for free. This wasn’t just for Apple branded cases. In fact, I believe this was before Apple sold first party iPhone cases.

Completely agree. MacBooks should just come with one in the first place. What's even crazier is they don't even sell it in their stores... the tech gave me the name of it so I could buy it online.