That's not a step - it's whenever you are large enough or have the right connections to do that. I was talking about large trends of how capitalist thought in the USA is going.

And at this moment in time, the "best" strategy is to milk customers with recurring purchases. And it turns out the value-add didn't work. So feature-removal-and-sell-back recurring purchase is the current phase.

We're seeing that everywhere in IOT, gadgets, kitchen consumer gear, vehicles. Basically, it's the manufacturers exerting control post-purchase with the implicit threat that they can and will brick your stuff.

To put bluntly, we need government oversight over these realms. First-sale doctrine needs to cover "functionality sold at bill of sale". "No bundling" (of additional services that "complete" a thing) also needs to be strongly enforced. And if/when companies do stuff later and remove features (PS3 for an easy example), that they need to be dealt with as if a hacker did that - as C-level ordered felonies with prison, direct massive compensation to the wronged parties, and massive fines (company-ending if need be).