The security preventing unlocking of devices is pretty sturdy these days. You can't root a lot of phones these days without signing keys that are kept very secure by the manufacturers, similar things are starting to happen with all these other machines that don't really need all these electronics.

Voting with your wallet only works when they're not behaving like a cartel. Every major phone manufacturer dropped the headphone jack all at once. Every TV manufacturer is including "smart" dumb shit in their TVs. Every car manufacturer makes a car that requires the factory entertainment head unit just to run.

At this point, voting with your wallet is almost synonymous with building your own stuff. The reality is, most people are trapped in this distopia.