What they are talking about is a pretty big deal, it's a huge deal. What we're going through now is a quiet redefinition of the concept of ownership of property, and that is quite frankly something that we should be having a public and very open debate about. And we need to have it now; in a few years it will be too late.
Some platforms are open and some are closed. Some are being remotely disabled by their manufacturer (have we bothered to find out why nest is doing this?) and we simply can stop buying products from them.
All I'm offering is a bit of optimism. Things don't necessarily have to go south. Noboey's redefining ownership, it's just a bad apple disabling some hardware. NOTE: you still own whatever hardware you buy. It's just that some hardware sucks and gets disabled by its manufacturer! Many items that we buy have huge defects, many of which are even worse than this! A Ferrari 458 can catch on fire and kill you, for example. It doesn't affect "ownership".
I'd make a bet with you if I could that in a few years we'll still be fine and have even more and better hardware and software innovation.
Give it a bad review, post an article about it, even sue the company that made it, but I don't see why we have to fear for our future ability to own things.