At the same time we finally got a phone that is built with some security in mind (Librem).
AMD using an open graphics driver is also a nice development of the last few years.
...
And we can mourn the loss of easily hackable PCs, but a lot of kids these days are just as exposed to tech as 20-30 years ago. (Eg Minecraft redstone programming, mobile app development, high quality YouTube videos about all things electronic, digital.)
So while naturally a higher tech aware populace would be nice, without cultural shifts and accompanying changes in education the status quo is not surprising.
If it ever materializes. It's already more than half a year behind schedule and after preordering it close to when it was announced, I'm very skeptical I'll ever receive it.
Fortune 500 companies, various nation states are willing to use random Android phones. Why shouldn't "we"?
And those license changes mean I’ve lost software freedom. People have decided AWS is the enemy and all changes that counter them are good to the extent that when they released a fully FOSS download of Elasticsearch, they were criticized for contributing to open source.
Software authors ditching open-source licenses to survive doesn't sound like a win for FOSS.
The GPLv3 closed the tivoization loophole, the AGPL closed the SaaS loophole, and now we have Apache-like licenses that close the rent seeking cloudification loophole.
The AGPL is Stallman + OSI + Debian approved, how come these new no-maximo-capitalismo licenses are somehow not?
Corporations are not people, and arguably are not entitled to the same freedoms with software that people have.
There actually used to be a every Sunday workshop where you made one from scratch in 3 hours (including board fab) with a grab bag of components to populate with — within the past couple years. (That shop closed due to lack of patrons.)
You can’t modify simple electronics as easily — but how many people built their own drones in the 80s? I’d guess RC cars and drones have about the same number of DIY whatever, and that we’re not seeing a fall off (because of difficulty — availability and community are different issues).
The simple truth is most people don’t care and don’t want to manage their stuff all the time: I make my own electronics, but my laptop is still Windows with minimal config. My desktop is parts and Linux — but only because I needed it to mirror what I do at work, as a test bed. The company itself found data centers to be too much fuss, and lifted-and-shifted most of it to the cloud.
Why don’t I bother? Because fighting the laptop constantly to keep FOSS working (and secure!) detracts from my time building my own electronics (or other forms of living life).
If you really care, our failure to create broader technical skill is not technical: it’s social.
We allowed RadioShack to be gutted, we allowed ”hacker spaces” to be priced out of business as cities grew, etc.
Radio Shack gutted itself, IMO, albeit probably in response to the reality that they couldn't sell very many single 555 timers for $1.99 anymore once people had obvious alternatives.
As for hacker spaces, if people want them, they have to be willing to pay [enough] to have them. If the local real estate gets progressively more expensive such that the hacker space is no longer viable economically, then it's going to close or move. It was game playing collectives before them. It'll be something else next. Things we like aren't immune from the laws of economics.
I don't have any firm numbers on this, but I doubt that discrete components for building circuits from scratch were ever a significant portion of Radio Shack's business. Seems like most of their sales were in manufactured devices (for example, amps, pocket radios, walkie talkies, computers), accessories (antennas, microphones), cables, replacement tubes for radios and TVs, and, of course, batteries.
Between clouds, binary blobs and SoC devices I think we're losing in hardware freedom on the back of FOSS as well.