But that isn't how this has worked, even in places like China where the regime would seem to have that level of power: while they absolutely require Apple--who went out of their way to create a bottleneck on software and information that is just too juicy not to assert external control over--to remove various apps from their store, it is not actually illegal to own or use unlocked devices.

> The government is a centralization of power, it doesn't matter if our devices are "decentralized" if the government can simply make it illegal to use unlocked devices.

That is a very binary view of the world, but the world is nothing but shades of gray.

At the very extreme of the most totalitarian government, you're right. Such a government can ban one thing or ban everything.

But in nearly every country, it's vastly easier to go choke a single neck (Apple) and tell them to shut something down, than to chase after tens of millions of individual people with individual devices, if all of them can run whatever they want from wherever they want.

That is the power of decentralization.

It isn't just our government: Apple sells these devices around the world and they pull the same shit in every jurisdiction, and so the Chinese government has been granted by them an extremely powerful axe to just ban software they dislike, a tool they use quite often, forcing Apple to pull apps for VPNs and other P2P tools used by protesters to coordinate in a world where the Internet is locked down. If you are going to create a device and sell it in this world, you have to understand how this world works, and in this world, if you create and defend a centralized bottleneck, you WILL become a patsy.

> Not the definition of our government. Our founding documents state that "Congress shall make no law" along the lines of what Apple is being pressured to do here.

I suggest read up on NSLs.

Sure, that should not be legal if the constitution meant anything, but there it is.

> the problem is the power

Tell me about a single government ever in history that has not abused its power at least sometimes?

While you're right, we should strive for that, we also need to strive for not building centralization that can be abused. Because it will always be abused.