And sadly it's only going to get harder and harder. More stuff is going to get locked down - not just PCs and PC-adjacent stuff like PS/XBox/etc.

It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot of network connected home devices you buy, but it'll become even more difficult.

3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via legislation.

Tractors.... gestures wildly at Deere

You can't fix software problems in your dishwasher or fridge.

Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/

This has always been the hacker spirit. Make things designed to do one thing do another thing. If it's against the hardware maker's intentions or just completely outside their expectation, even better!

I get what you are saying. But this always would have been exciting.

This is like a post saying someone got Apple Basic running on their Commodore 64.

It's unfortunately par for the course for something like a console to be like this. Consoles are often subsidized by licensing and publishing costs of games, so preventing you from running your own software is within their best interest.

We need to bring back this culture.

I absolutely hate the design of the "app store" which means that you can't revert to an older version when you find out the new one changes a critical feature that you used previously.

It's sad to see someone running doom on a pregnancy tester?

It’s pretty rare that you actively cant, but it makes sense a lot of businesses wouldn’t bother to try and assist you with doing that. But some definitely don’t want you to, and I get that that’s sad. Always makes space for a competitor though!

Why sad?

I mean, the hardware is sold at a loss so it makes perfect sense.

Most computers in the world don't need the ability to have their operating system changed or run custom user built software. Consumers will be fine with the preexisting software and such a feature is unneeded complexity that almost no one will use.