He simply does not have control of it.

In any case, Apple can't be blamed here. Apple does not know what really happened.

Here is a great example of why Apple takes the position they do:

Sim card takeovers. Remember when most of tech thought tying accounts to phone numbers was a good idea?

Remember the people saying that was a very bad idea?

People can get their digital lives taken, or very seriously impacted just by someone knowing a phone number!

The same social engineering and or permissive policy being advocated for in this laptop case gets used all the time to swap a user's sim card!

Once that has been done, the attacker can do password swaps and cause all sorts of grief.

The question is: “how are people apologising for the fact that Apple are refusing to support individuals who are locked out of their own devices?”

The question you are answering is an irrelevant hypothetical whereas question being asked is a very legitimate consumer request.

It’s like dismissing a mugging by saying “it’s ok because they didn’t stab you”. Both are legitimately wrong but only one of those scenarios is being discussed.