The end game for ad blocking is a neural network inspecting the final rendered webpage frame before it's displayed to the user and painting over it to cover the ads.
Your average user doesn't try to copy movies, which is why DRM is accepted in Netflix.
Again, same market pressure, a useful actually used feature will never be removed because people will not buy the device.
Most people don't care about replaceable batteries, headphone jacks or rooting.
In fact not allowing rooting is net benefit for the vast majority because it prevents spyware being installed on the device by a controlling partner, ...
My position is freedom. To create locked-down devices. Or open ones. And freedom for consumers to buy which kind they want. You are taking a position that you know what's best for consumers. That's quite presumptuous.
For most consumers a locked device is in their interest because it protects them from malware and data loss.
The reality is that people in the developed world need to carry smart phones. It's expected in order to be a functioning member of society. My kid's school has an app that does messaging and notifications, my kid's after-school group has a different app that does likewise, etc. A few weeks ago, I was expected to "sign" a waiver for an activity by clicking a link in an email... while I was AT THE PLACE IN QUESTION. Since I didn't happen to bring a laptop to this activity, I pulled out my smart phone to do it.
So, when my phone breaks, I have no choice but to buy another one. It doesn't have to be a new model, of course. But, if they all collectively move toward removing features that I'd prefer to have (like removable batteries) or start adding things that I DON'T want, I'm still going to buy it because I more-or-less have to.
So, it's not that people don't care or actually prefer the way things are going. It's that they feel like they have no choice.
Again, I understand that they/we LITERALLY have a choice. We're not going to die if we don't buy a smart phone. But, it's not as simple as "they bought the thing, so they must approve of all of it."
You are not forced by the evil companies, you are forced by market pressure from the majority of consumers.
Not even Apple was able to resist consumer pressure, they famously yielded and made a big screen phone.
It can be both.
If Apple decided to do something moderately annoying to their phones without considering any user/customer feedback, it wouldn't drastically affect sales.
There's a limit, of course. If they're too hostile, too quickly, then people will buy Android phones instead. But, if it's just a little bit worse for the end user, customers will keep buying iPhones.
Why? Because of vendor lock-in. Why do you think companies have been trying to lock us in to their product ecosystems since the dawn of market economics? It's certainly not to make it EASIER for their customers to "vote with their wallets."
For example, I'd be willing to bet good money that Microsoft didn't start putting ads and shit into Windows 10 or whatever because it really thought that Windows users would just LOVE that. I also bet they didn't decide to re-enable settings during updates that users disabled because the majority of Windows users wanted to have to periodically reapply settings changes that they made...
> Not even Apple was able to resist consumer pressure, they famously yielded and made a big screen phone.
I don't know the internals of what goes on at Apple, but both the small size and the "no-stylus" convictions seemed to be due to Steve Jobs. And I'll note that both, the bigger size phones and the iPad stylus came out at least a couple years after he died. So, it's not obvious to me that Apple would have yielded on those with Jobs at the helm.
When all devices are the same, you have no choice.