A car that already has the hardware but requires payment to enable that by software is exactly the same thing as paying for a video game: The video game is already created and uploaded on the servers but software requires payment to let you download and play it. There are numerous other examples like game consoles sold at loss, printers sold less than the cost, search engines or mail services provided for free, free hosting etc. - all investing huge sums on creating the product in hope to recoup that and make profit by collecting small fees later and they need their products locked down to be able to do this.

The whole thing revolves around collecting small payments for a the very large capital investment that is required to create the product in first place. Since the small payments are collected post-development, someone has to risk their large capital for this to happen, they also expect compensation and guarantees that the small payments will arrive if the product is developed successfully.

The software is locked down only because they want to enforce that business model. You can refuse to participate in that but ultimately, those who can invest large amount of money end up making the much better products.