This is bad on so many levels. In addition to the hypocrisy mentioned, and the fact it's not just a privacy violation, but a security issue and an active interference in the use of people's personal computers/property, but the timing couldn't be worse for them, with this coming out during the congressional hearing and coming lawsuits. It's like they want to be fined and/or broken up. I hope they're held to account for this, both by the US government and the EU, since I'm sure this is a violation of the GDPR.
As for the comments regarding common people not caring about this, a) true, but sad, and I'll never understand how people can just not care at all about this kind of thing, and b) it's one thing for companies to do stuff like this and have it affect those people, and since they don't care I certainly don't (about them, not about the larger issue), but at least there's typically a way for those that do care to work around this kind of thing, but Apple taking steps to remove even that possibility is really taking it to the next level. Not surprising, though, since they've always been about making people bend to their whims, dictating what people can do with their products and how. I'd like to think they're going to put themselves into a corner by making their products more niche (limitations of their new chip, e.g. no more Bootcamp) and by alienating more and more people with actions like this, but the sad truth is that, as others have mentioned, it won't matter. People will still keep refusing to see Apple for what it is.