This is because of the democratically elected government demanding these controls. Remember Fable?

No it's bog standard capitalism. If you want to buy something from somebody else, they (usually) have the right to refuse.

Corporations are not, nor ever have been a democracy.

What you are asking for is regulations, but as we have seen regulations are pointed at giving the government and corporations more control.

Maybe elect better leaders and not corrupt old businessmen.

I want one regulation on AI: everything must be public. Training data, code, procedures, everything. And for that to work, a complete scrapping and overhaul of our copyright system. One can dream.