The restriction from connecting your own devices to the Bell System forestalled the production, sale, and invention of devices such as the answering machine (Bell invented one in 1930, along with magnetic storage - but scrapped the project because they thought it would cause people to use the phone less), fax machine, and so on and so forth. The 1956 ruling against Bell in favor of Hush-A-Phone effectively allowed the invention, sale, and use of foreign attachments to the Bell System.
The restriction of doing what you want with your own console/computer is essentially the same damn thing. We've already fought this war against monopolists in technology; it's sad that we have to do it all over again.
Further reading:
Hush-A-Phone vs. United States (Hush-A-Phone appeal to an FCC ruling): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hush-A-Phone_v._United_States
The Master Switch (Tim Wu): http://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires-Borz...
I was pretty young then, but I do remember that after the breakup the market saw a rush of new phone devices.
I still have the first phone I ever bought, in 1985 right after the rules changed. (And because it was made by Western Electric in the good old days, it still works!)
However, I don't see how this is different than a EULA. Not all the companies would adopt this. In fact most won't; but imagine a company, say a cell phone manufacturer, or a car maker (think Tesla) that says "We are adopting the XYZ T&C and privacy policy because we respect our users. We are committed to making the best products in our industry and do not need to rely on a bunch of legal traps to sell them." Would you buy from a company that does that? I would.
And of course the law takes precedence, just like it does with current T&C. The only thing is that the users are the ones who are originating the T&C, not the companies. That may be a very radical shift for corporate lawyers, but I don't see how this is science fiction otherwise. Just like the GPL, it could operate perfectly within the current system.
If anything, having easily understandable pre-written T&C in the style of similar license could only support capitalism: companies would opt to use them if they deemed it profitable, and consumers would be more able to make the informed decisions on which capitalism should thrive.