For the entire history of the United States, it has been the case that when you buy a product, you may repair it. You may disassemble it. You may do as you like

For the entire history of the United States, it has been the case that when you buy a product, you may repair it. You may disassemble it. You may do as you like with devices that you purchase. It was never illegal to take apart a musket. It was never illegal to fix a broken wheel on a carriage. It was never illegal to replace a piece of the electronics on a radio with a new piece. But now it is. What is "broadly accepted as fact" is that if you purchase an item, it belongs to you, and you may take it apart, fix it, modify it, as you like. It is fundamentally "weird" and new to people (and the only people aware of these laws are the ones unlucky enough to run up against them), the notion that you can simultaneously own an item and be locked in a cage for taking it apart. It disassembles and redefines ownership in a fundamental way, and ownership is a fundamental concept in our society and has been for hundreds of years. We should not let companies redefine it for their profit overnight without our notice or a fight. That's what this fight is.