[surgical_fire]

Being in control of your own computing device was always a niche. The vast majority of people are not interested in computing itself, only in the output. For that majority, this is fine.

The niche is still there, probably as big as it was before. For example, as I grew weary of being subject to services I have little control over, I set up my own home server using a refurbished PC. It has been an amazing journey so far. But I don't think a normie would ever get interested in buying a refurbished Dell, install Debian on it, and set up their own services there.

As long as there is a niche of people interested in buying their own computers, there will be companies willing to fill that niche.

[bombcar]

This is the correct stance - even in the era of "total personal computer control" the vast majority of people were not in control - they had a friend or child or parent or IT department who was really in control, they were just along for the ride.

And a large number of those people jump at getting them an iPad instead of the perpetual tech support required.

This has been a thing for so long that the jokes were already old in 2005 - 21 years ago! https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/12/one-day-in-the...