I help seniors with technology issues
Question: why does the market fail so miserably in this respect?Why are all consumer grade electronics running closed sourced questionable code that you cannot alter? I need a laptop, a table and a phone. I have been looking for over a year and I cannot find anything I like.  0. I don't want arbitrary software running on my personal devices, fullstop. 
  1. I want to be able to run my preferred free software.
  2. I want my preferred free software to be able to access all installed hardware and use it to its full capabilities.
  3. I don't want to pay a $1000 premium to be able to do this.

This is one of the biggest market failures of our generation. All we have is fake choice, but not a single manufacturer wants to deliver plain open hardware. If you look at buying a car you will end up in exactly the same situation. In fact all consumer hardware of all sorts has the same problem.RMS was right back then, but the problem has recently become much more serious. Back then it was only about laptops. Now I have to worry about my fridge spying on me.