But it's not. The article did a crap job of explaining this.
You buy the battery for the same $69 that an in store replacement costs. You then get a $24 credit when you return the old battery. Apple covers this shipping cost too.
You don't have to rent the tools from Apple. There are plenty of other options.
I have the iFixit battery kit from a previous replacement and through work have access to a bench full of tools of this kind of stuff.
People that don't have that can buy the iFixit tools individually. They sell a battery with a minimal set of tools (a $5 adder) but there's doesn't seem to be an option to buy that same minimal set without the battery so you'd need to get a more general purpose set for $25 or $70.
Maybe a friend has the tools. Maybe there's a local Makerspace or library that has an appropriate set of tools.
