Apple and Amazon cut a deal that upended the Mac resale market

When John Bumstead looked at listings for his products on Amazon.com in early January, he was waiting for the guillotine to fall. A small online business owner from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bumstead specializes in refurbishing and selling old MacBooks, models he typically buys from recyclers and fixes up himself. But on January 4th, Bumstead's entire business dwindled into nonexistence as his listings were removed from the platform due to a new policy limiting all but the largest companies and specially authorized providers from selling Apple products. Apple made a special deal with Amazon to basically exterminate all third party repair services and used Apple product sellers that aren't specifically approved by Apple. The result is a sharp increase in pricing on used Apple products sold on Amazon - exactly what Apple wants, of course - and smaller, non-Apple approved resellers are dying off. Charming. And people actually claim Apple has morals and values.