I think we can agree that a modern phone is “hardware and software” for sure.

If you want to modify GP’s proposal to exclude things that also have a service, how long until DJI adds a service to their drone? (It might even be a negative duration; I don’t own one, but it would shock me if there wasn’t some kind of service associated already, perhaps to prevent flying a drone in unauthorized areas [or justified as such] or allow access to some online component of camera service.)

They can add all the services they want to their drone. As long as I'm not required to use them.

> I think we can agree that a modern phone is “hardware and software” for sure.

You should be able to use your phone and install software on it without signing up for the sellers services, I think there is no reason to not allow that except evil lockin.

See windows for what happens when you don't legally enforce that, its ridiculous windows forces you to sign up to their services.

Even then, almost all online services are susceptible to re-imagining such that user/session identifiers are self-declared and can be rotated/discarded at any time. To this, some folks would be yelling, "that's not how my/XYZ service works", which is a proxy statement for those unwilling to say, "my/XYZ business model is abusive".

And that of course is also why this only happens via regulation.