IMO though, corporations seem to like taking steps to make that sort of work harder (e.g., utilizing encryption to ensure "blessed" hardware/software can only b

IMO though, corporations seem to like taking steps to make that sort of work harder (e.g., utilizing encryption to ensure "blessed" hardware/software can only be used). I've given some thought to this, and I don't think that it can mostly be blamed on the corporations. Sure, they're part of it, but I think the ever increasing complexity of technology is mostly what causes things to be harder to tinker on. There's far more to understand than in older technology, and it makes tinkering/hacking on things far more difficult. It's kind of like classic cars vs cars today. Older cars were much more tinkerable/hackable/etc, but newer ones have certainly benefited from the increased complexity in the form of better gas mileage, safety, etc at the cost of hackability.