This is exactly why “Right to repair” rose up to claw that ownership back.

If we don’t create laws, at some point down the road we will go from “not much recourse” to literally none.

What if Apple created a phone with no ports that was filled with epoxy as the last step in assembly? What if powering it on at all meant logging in to your apple account?

They could in every meaningful way take that device away from you at the run of a single function.

If that would happen, and it bothers you, just don't buy an Apple phone. Problem solved.

If that happens and there are no laws, it will affect more and more products.

Don’t buy a laptop? A car? A building? A slab of wood?

Yes, my examples are borderline unreasonable, but we’re already at the level of unreasonable products being licensed instead of owned (Tractors, DSLRs).

Unless your country goes full socialism and there is only the government as provider for all those things, competing companies can provide you with repairable products. If people actually want them (which I doubt), why shouldn't companies provide them?

With the tractors and DSLRs, again, if you don't like their licensing model, don't buy them. If nobody buys them, they will probably change their licensing model.

It's more complicated than that and is threatening to get even more complicated.

Companies continue to grow larger than countries in both cash flow and influence.

That may be so, but you can still buy from the competition.

I feel like you’re either missing critical information about how companies can make that impossible, or you know and you’re “doing a bit”.

Let me say this outright: Sometimes the “competitors” are working together to maintain a monopoly.

If they do that, they open a door for another competitor.

Of course it is all a bit more complicated. But by and large it works.