Even as someone concerned with the issues you mention, the shift happening now feels pretty magical to me. I can only imagine how non-technical people must feel.
I often get asked by friends and family "can I get rid of annoyance X" or "can I have feature Y" on their Android phones, usually because they see that I've done it on my phone [0]. The answer is always "yes, I can set that up for you, but this will take an hour, I need to wipe all your data and a bunch of your apps will stop working".
There is no reason it should be like that. That was a choice by the manufacturers. They developed these DRM features and actively market them to developers - to the point where I can't submit an update to my little bus app without getting a prompt to add SafetyNet to it. They even somehow concinced pentesters to put "no cert pinning, root check and remote attestation" into their reports, so bank and government apps are the worst offenders.
It's not like people decided they prefer closed to open. They prefer working to non-working. And open platforms were broken intentionally by the developers of the closed ones.
It's like saying Americans all love their cars and simply decided not to use public transport. No, their public transport was crippled to the point of uselessness and their neighbourhoods were built in a way that makes public transport unfeasible. Cars work for them and trains don't. This was not their choice and it's painfully obvious when you see them go literally anywhere else on the planet and be amazed at how great trains are.
[0] Things like: global adblock, removing bloatware, floating windows or splitsceen, miracast, slide for brightness/volume, modded apps, lockscreen gestures, app instances, working shared clipboard, NFC UID emulation, automatic tethering, audio EQ...
This sums up many things perfectly. I'll be stealing this.
Sure people will care about things on paper or in conversation, but my point is that most don't care enough to do anything about it.
> There is no reason it should be like that
Most businesses exist primarily to make money, so they have all the reasons for their bad designs and behavior.
> They prefer working to non-working
Of course, but TANSTAAFL. We keep rewarding the providers with our money and data, so the beatings will continue if you want to keep up with the Joneses.
I hear the point you're making with the comparison to transportation, but you can't just build a road or a railway, while you can absolutely build software.
For example, say phones become more and more locked down and invasive. Technically you can choose not to have a phone, but how are you meant to function in today's society without a phone? Basically everything of importance assumes you have a phone. Technically you could make your own phone, I guess, but that's very difficult.
I don't think you can reasonably make the argument that because technically everyone can make their own choices, we should be ok with whatever status quo in society.
I don't think we should be ok with the status quo, and I think complaining about issues can be a catalyst for change, but rather than just complain about the state of affairs, I'm pointing out that alternatives exist, so it's on us to enact change.
TBH, I'm pessimistic about my words making a difference, but I want to promote independent/DIY mindset anyway. It's ironic that the frontier LLMs are proprietary platforms, yet they're enabling more independence to their users. Regardless, if everything goes to shit, we can still opt out and go back to the previous generation's lifestyle. No mobile phones and moving at the speed of snail mail doesn't sound all that bad, though I'd sure miss Google Maps.