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We are quickly headed to a future where it won't be possible to buy unlocked hardware. It may not be long before (very nearly) 100% of the hardware on the consumer market is locked and it will only be able to acquire unlocked hardware through NDA agreement, huge costs or by "illegally" unlocking it via an exploit.

Locked hardware is itself objectionable, anti-consumer and anti-freedom. "Free software works in a narrowing ecosystem of semi-free hardware" is not an acceptable position for advocates of free software.

It isn't always possible to build my own hardware, especially in the embedded world. I buy unlocked hardware now, but I learned that lesson the hard way from Verizon and Samsung.