> 2. There is no argument here: if you can not control what and how your device operates, your freedom is being taken. You can argue that you don't value this f

> 2. There is no argument here: if you can not control what and how your device operates, your freedom is being taken. You can argue that you don't value this freedom over the convenience it brings you, but this is at best an admission of you being on (1). To illustrate something by exaggerating (one of) the numbers to make it crystal clear what I'm getting at: A Mac that I don't fully control but has 12 hour battery life feels more free in practice than a fully-open platform with a 1-hour battery life. The latter leaves me less able to use the device for things I want to, and takes up more of my time hunting for wall outlets or just having a dead machine when I need one that's working. Time spent keeping my devices working does not feel like freedom, since I could have used that time for other things. There's hypothetical freedom to do stuff I don't really care to do (audit or fiddle with my OS), then there's the actual range of liberty-of-action for stuff that I do care to do. Personally, I tend to favor the latter, strongly. The former's just a nice-to-have.