Don't forget that a lot of those features weren't put on there to spy on people, or control them, they were put on there to make non-technical users safer. Non

Don't forget that a lot of those features weren't put on there to spy on people, or control them, they were put on there to make non-technical users safer. Non-technical users can and will be tricked into doing all sorts of ridiculous things to their computer, and then they will blame the computer manufacturer for letting them do that. Computer manufacturers responded by not letting them do that. Mainstream computers are designed for mainstream users... the common clay of the land... you know... morons. They have to be protected from doing stupid things to their computers (because otherwise that's how you get botnets). As the OP says, there are computers that don't have these features, and that you can do whatever you like with. But they tend to cost more, in part because they're not mainstream so they don't get economies of scale.