I mean yes, you or I might just get an ITX board or a Pi and run our own Linux on it to setup a NAS, but most of the average users aren't going to do that, most

I mean yes, you or I might just get an ITX board or a Pi and run our own Linux on it to setup a NAS, but most of the average users aren't going to do that, mostly because they don't have the knowledge or expertise, or because they don't have the time. Vendors with names people trust should be held accountable when they fuck up like this. Also you can't trust everything all the way down. A Pi still has proprietary video chips, every Intel and AMD board has some kind of management software, etc. etc. There is no way for one human being to be all Tony Stark and build literally everything from the ground up.