[necovek]

The way I get it, you are saying that the risk article mentions has already materialized: we have a bunch of general-purpose computers running in a bunch of devices which are artificially limited from performing general computation.

It seems to me the article does not really hit the point with those who are not already on-board with "all software must be free" (in the FSF sense).

If you don't believe you should have the right to modify software running on your paid-for general purpose computer called a TV (and it is a general purpose computer, some even run mostly general purpose operating systems like Android or WebOS on ARM SoCs), the article is trying to warn you that you'll be soon the victim of software on those TVs: like the webcam and microphone issues with Samsung TVs recently.

Only when anyone can explore and run software they wish on their general purpose computers masquerading as specialized devices (that's what the article aims for, imho) will everyone, including your mom, brother or yoga teacher, be safe from the risks hacker community is all too well aware of.

I don't think the article is very clear in what it tries to convey, because general purpose computers will always remain, but public at large is being steered away from them, and that's where the risk is.