Summary: schools and companies sell their old laptops to recyclers, but don't unlock them first. Historically recyclers never needed to coordinate with the previous owners because once they had the hardware they could do anything they needed. With new security chips, however, these locked computers are nearly worthless.
Since these computers are still valuable, I think we probably end up with a new dynamic where contracts are updated so the previous owners get money back for unlocking them first. That maintains their value without opening a path for thieves to unlock and resell stolen macs.
I like the incentive you propose, but in the case of a company offloading 3000 laptops that are perceived to already be EOL, they likely will not find the financial incentive to be worth their time. I suspect nothing less than regulatory hurdles would resolve this, and I don't think the recyclers have enough pull for that.
If the laptops are worth ~$1000 unlocked and ~$100 locked we're talking about a pretty big loss. Propagating this back up the recycling chain is going to take a while, but eventually all of these companies will have "unlock the laptop" as a step in their checklists.
For MacBooks? Assuming they’re five years old, which is already quite old for an enterprise fleet, we’re talking several hundred dollars per unit still. Easily worth spending time resetting them with jamf
Since these computers are still valuable, I think we probably end up with a new dynamic where contracts are updated so the previous owners get money back for unlocking them first. That maintains their value without opening a path for thieves to unlock and resell stolen macs.