Hey Ford!! I took the ignition out of my Explorer and replaced it with one from Bob's Cheap Ignitions down the street, and now my car won't start! You bastards did this on purpose! I'm lawyering up!
How is this even a comparable situation?
What would be more comparable is; your car breaks, you take it to a mechanic which isn't your car dealer, which, guess what? Every damn person who owns a car and isn't made of money does. A part is replaced and the issue you had is fixed. A month later you then go for a routine yearly service at the dealer and the manufacturer takes your keys off you because they found a third party replacement part. Leaving you with a giant expensive ornament.
This isn't about security, and this is a much greater issue than you and the indescribable, ever devoting, can do no wrong in your eyes relationship you have with a major corporation. They don't love you and wouldn't be ever so defending on you in a lawsuit. Take off the blinkers and look at this logically, I like Apple products as much as the next person, I've owned numerous iPods, MacBooks, iMacs, Apple TVs, iPads, every iPhone and a watch, but I still can see when they're doing wrong.
This is not a security issue, it's money grabbing.
When my oven breaks, and needs the element that it relies on to create heat replacing, do I have to go to the manufacturer to come and repair it and replace the part? Or can I phone up my local electrician to do it, who then offers me third or first party parts of my choosing? When he fits the third party alternative, does the manufacturer just stop the oven turning on because they jumped to a conclusion that there's a risk that this third party part is cheaper or "dodgy" and could perhaps burn my house down? Which lets face it is a much more severe repercussion than someone being able to bypass a fingerprint scanner on my phone. No they don't and have no right to.
Apple have no right to do what they're doing, a prompt should come up warning you perhaps that it has detected that you've had a non original Apple Touch ID component added to your device and you must proceed to use your phone at your own risk, alternatively go to Apple and pay for a replacement component.
They could in a worst case scenario disable all Touch ID services, or wipe all existing Touch ID data off your phone and force you to set it all up again, therefore compromising nothing. That's their data/privacy responsibilities catered for, the phone doesn't need to become a brick.
But even that is a step too far, where do these people who got these dodgy third party Touch ID sensors with the ability to steal your information (which we have no evidence actually exist) also get your passcode and password from? They would need to enter your passcode to unlock the phone once they power it on and they would need to enter your password the first time you use Touch ID, your data is safe anyway.
Apple should get rid of this awful "error 53" message immediately, and they should refund anyone who they've charged for a new phone. They don't need to replace third party components free of charge that should just be up to the user if they want to replace it, which they shouldn't have to.
If my MacBook battery dies, or my screen cracks and I replace it myself or get a third party repair centre to do so, should that stop working too? There's plenty of similar information on there that's only a single password (or not even that away) too.
Stop trying to defend the indefensible and think about the bigger picture of consumer rights and freedom to shop around. If we create this massive monopoly that you want you'll soon regret the lack of competition and choice available to you, with competition comes lower pricing and a better market for the consumer.