What makes you so sure the restrictions will stop somewhere you're comfortable with? What happens when unlocked machines are only available to "enterprise" (not unlike a certain Windows version), and you have to agree to audits when buying them? What chance do free operating systems stand, when 99% of users don't even have access to computers that could run them?
We need not worry as long as somewhere, in some dark basement, a sysadmin is able to assemble an unlocked personal computer from his company's old hardware?
The way to stop this is through legislation and protest, but it's a battle because the state likes locked down computers too.
Right now, today, it has never been easier to just go down to the local mall and buy a general purpose computer, and sure, there are lots of phones, tablets, and consoles on display as well, but there is no less computers as a result.
These regulations can easily outlaw general-purpose computing on the same grounds of being too dangerous for the society. I can remind you how encryption algorithms were considered "munitions" back in 1990s, less than 30 years ago. At that time one would possibly say that it will always be possible to bring a small bottle of water onboard of an airplane. Betting on things always being "naturally" available, without a conscious effort to sustain them, is a fraught enterprise.
If we continue to give power to right wing extremists, all bets are off.
The percentage of unlocked computers for consumers has been falling. Consoles, tablets, smartphones (all iPhones and many Androids don't allow rooting), smart TVs... even some laptops. Surface RT laptops had locked secure boot, and Chromebooks made it very difficult to install alternative OSes, as far as I know.
As for the incentives of the "open market", there's profit in locking down devices, and selling you back fragments of that locked functionality. For example, nvidia pushed an EULA that forbade using their consumer GPUs in datacenters, making them buy the far more expensive enterprise versions.
With how markets tend towards oligopolies and monopolies, there's no guarantee the handful of manufacturers left won't conspire to put restrictions on all computers. Especially if 95% of consumers don't care about being able to run gcc.
I don't know why do you think it would? Both software and hardware-side, there's no end of complaints that power users are being left behind. All the money is in making Fisher-Price software for the masses. Ain't nobody have time to cater for ergonomics or efficiency in computing, it's only a distraction from milking the general population.
This, to me, is a clear example of the market underserving a customer segment.
The more worrying thing IMHO is that the software to make use of that hardware is becoming increasingly polarised between what's aiming for big businesses and what's aiming for consumer drones.
The thing that gives me some hope is that the geeks all those businesses rely on to build the software that makes them billions are almost all in the "lost middle" and, given enough time and inclination, are quite capable of creating open software to destroy those businesses.
Sure, I'm as annoyed as you and the author about UEFI, but as long as I can install an OSS bootloader and launch whatever I want, I'm good. It may be a pain, but the tinkering capability is still there. If it wasn't possible to tinker with it, less people would buy that laptop.
Having closed hardware is a problem and it definitely doesn't make me feel safe. We may all be full of NSA backdoors, but to be honest I don't care much about it and I assume a large part of the tech knowledgeable feel the same way. I suspect this is why Open Hardware is not more prevalent in the market: not enough interest.
I don't care about computer companies making more user friendly devices; we can find a way to hack whatever or just start buying laptop parts from China and make our own laptops. What worries me is if the government will decide to ban cryptography or introduce regulations that force me to change how I tinker with my computer.
Sure, there are some spercific form factors that I would love to have that are not available or very rare. I really want to replace my iPad with something that runs linux, for example.
All I'm arguing is that, I don't believe that in my lifetime, or the foreseeable future, will there ever be a time where I can't reasonably easily get some kind of desktop computer and run whatever code I want on it. (Unless those computers literately become illegal - like some code already is)
I might not be able to carry it in my pocket, or wear it on my face, and it might not have some holographic interface that has not yet been invented yet.
I'm also not saying we should ignore the the fight for general purpose machines, and I will continue to vote with my wallet, as well as lobby to have laws that opening our machines.
I think its a disgrace that Apple no longer supports my iPad witch functions perfectly well, but I can't install anything on anymore.
Society would be much better if all our phones were open, I just don't think we need to freak out about desktop computers disappearing.
