After nearly two decades of FOSS advocacy I've come to the conclusion that most consumers (a) already know about their gardens' walls, and (b) actually prefer it that way.

The view that freedom is always preferable over, say, the sense of security that folks get from having an avuncular corporation ensure that the tools in their lives have a limited range of use -- that someone is literally managing the possibilities of their personal devices, pruning them of (supposedly) dangerous apps and ensuring that they are within certain expectations, is a great comfort to people who are already used to their lives being managed in precisely this way by any number of powerful actors.

Stuff like this from the FSF makes me think they just don't understand the user. The user is typically is not an engineer. The customer is not interested in the responsibility that comes with that kind of power, and would pay good money to trade it off for predictability. And the success of nerfed, general-computing-incapable devices is market validation of this hypothesis.

I'm uncomfortable with this facet of human nature too, and it runs contrary to the prevailing narrative of our industry and even of the Enlightenment itself, but until we accept that many folks just want to be taken care of, we will keep being surprised.

Customer obsession means appreciating all the data, not just the data that is comfortable to behold.