Microsoft is the company trying the hardest to force users to dial back to Microsoft before using their products, as far as I know. Quite a wide base of users detest the process & loath it. It feels incredibly tacky & I would not recommend Apple lower themselves so.

And it's still nowhere near what you are asking for. What exactly is "validating" a serial number? Are you saying users need to present receipt of purchase? Does the store need to provide proof? Maybe Apple validates by getting access to you bank statements? How are these proof of sales tied to individual specific devices?

This feels like clutching for certainty. Maybe Apple can have such a tight & narrow sales model, can get every cell phone company managing their inventory with vastly tighter inventory control (tracking which specific devices are ss) than anyone has ever done before. Maybe Apple can pull it off.

Should they? Do they want to be subject to various governments asking who bought which device? Do they want to spend the time updating & maintaining these listings? Are they ok pissing off devs hackers & other enthusiasts who get steamrolled by these changes? Apple can form & deploy the Imperial Royal Guard over their products if they really wanted to, I have scant doubts, but the costs of forming that chain of control, cost of maintaining that database, and the liability of owning such rich data about their users in the current legal climate all seem like colossal prices to pay.