We've only had them for historical reasons. If any of the big manufacturers had the option to invent a "personal computer" now, I'm 100% sure running arbitrary code wouldn't make it to the feature list.
Honestly - I don't think it's just the big manufacturers.
If HTML was invented in the current climate, I'm damn well convinced a simple <a href={external domain}> would be shot down for "security" reasons.
We're seeing a real breakdown into walled ecosystems. My opinion is that most of the steps that direction are well-intentioned (Safety, Security, Consistency, etc). The end result is fucking hell, though, where the ecosystem owner profits massively and unfairly compared to all other entities.
That's how IBM built the PC, loosely. They didn't imagine a market where there would be third party expansion cards, and they believed that users should come to them, and their partners, for software.
Compaq blew that wide open, much to IBM corporate's dismay and IBM legal's glee.
If HTML was invented in the current climate, I'm damn well convinced a simple <a href={external domain}> would be shot down for "security" reasons.
We're seeing a real breakdown into walled ecosystems. My opinion is that most of the steps that direction are well-intentioned (Safety, Security, Consistency, etc). The end result is fucking hell, though, where the ecosystem owner profits massively and unfairly compared to all other entities.