> Counterpoint: many vendors with lock-in use the price of the subscription and ads they show you to subsidize the device itself.

Vendors want to have their cake and eat it. They are no longer happy with a one-time sale, they want a continuous revenue stream. I have absolutely no qualms about buying "subsidized" devices and liberating them. I am not going to pay five times the price of a "smart TV" for a commercial display with worse specs when I can buy the consumer version and not connect it to the Internet or root it.