A scenario where general-purpose "unlocked" computers become extremely rare and nearly every computing device is a non-user-programmable appliance designed not

A scenario where general-purpose "unlocked" computers become extremely rare and nearly every computing device is a non-user-programmable appliance designed not to function without remote servers and regularly cycled cryptographic keys seems possible, though not inevitable. It would be a very stupid kind of apocalypse to live through if a solar storm didn't destroy many actual computers but did enough damage to brick 99.999% of the computers that survived intact, and left civilization with a crippling bootstrapping problem of capital's own design.