I wrote the comment. I didn’t mean that in that way; I mean the intention of the manufacturer may coincidentally overlap with that of a hypothetical parent of a precocious child or children. I didn’t mean to advocate for the practice of safety or otherwise nonstandard fasteners in consumer electronics. I’m against that practice, even if it may have potential upsides as in my example.

I was also that kid, and now I use computer hardware and software skills daily in a professional capacity. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly agree with you on all points.

I don’t know what reasonable justification there is for doing this for consumer devices generally, from the owner’s perspective. Maybe it makes devices more appealing in a corporate context, for the same reason some secure environments forbid devices with cameras or recording hardware, and also forbid (re-)recordable media. Maybe it reduces loss in the supply chain for the companies to do so. Some credit card payment terminals have tamper-evident designs built-in prevent or deter dumping hardware encryption/decryption keys, firmware, and other kinds of tampering, to reduce fraud and unauthorized access, for the owner’s sake and the networks’ sake. I would like to hear some more or better reasons if anyone has insights into these topics.

The reasons are simple: to gain more control over the secondary market and to get a piece of the action in case of repairs out of warranty.