[bitwize]

> operate cars safely

Personal vehicles have turned out to be A Bad Idea, and now the consensus appears to be we should be moving toward more -- perhaps exclusive -- use of public transport, rather than expect people to own a car.

I'm beginning to wonder if the same isn't true of personal "general purpose computing" devices. 99% of people would choose the locked down device, especially if it makes their favorite apps available: Instagram, Netflix, etc. Which it may not if it were open, because then it could not provide guarantees against piracy or tampering by the end user. But still, from an end user perspective, knowing that stuff from bad actors will be prevented or at least severely hampered is a source of peace of mind.

Nintendo figured this out 40 years ago: buy our locked down system, and we can provide a guarantee against the enshittification spiral that tanked the home video game market in 1983, leading to landfills full of unsold cartridges. It sold like hotcakes.