As the walled-garden company controlling every aspect they can possibly get their hands on, this is extremely out of the norm for Apple. The popularity of Right to Repair in an age where money printing is driving the cost of everything through the roof, their phone lines must have been being melted by callers desperate for help.
It's kind of a simple math problem. Each Apple store has so many geniuses, multiply that times how many users call daily and an ever extending wait time, and it all ends up here. When you simply don't have the man power, the option of deputizing your own customer base starts to make a whole lot of dollars and cents.
I applaud Apple for doing the non-Apple thing for a change. Hopefully this is a permanent development and not just for a few years here.