Money is only valuable because the society makes it so, and especially because governments only accept taxes in their own currency. But if you own a banknote, it's fully yours. You can spend it on anything — including something illegal like drugs. Or you can draw something on it thus invalidating its value. The government that issued it doesn't have a say in any of this.
But with modern locked-down electronics, you could only do what the manufacturer intends, and nothing more. Continuing with monetary analogies, it's like a credit card that only works for things your bank considers "good" for you.
Sandboxed trusted computing actually offers a way out of this dilemma: Rather than having an entire phone/computer etc. locked down (so that some third party can trust it), there is only a trusted subsystem that can interact with the larger system only in limited and well-defined ways.
Microsoft's plans for the TPM back in the early 2000s have given the entire concept of trusted computing a bad reputation, but besides DRM, there are many legitimate use cases for it that are not anti-consumer/anti-freedom.
Sure. Cloud servers are a good one. But I still see no benefit for the end user to lock down any consumer devices like that. It only benefits the device manufacturers themselves. Like, you know, Apple forcing its online services onto people literally by burning stuff into silicon. I don't have a problem when hardware and software are tightly integrated. I do have a problem when said software isn't modifiable and has a hard dependency on servers you can't control and can't self-host.
Let people modify their modem firmware, just make sure they understand what they're doing. But they might interfere with other people's service, you say? They could as well do that with a $300 SDR, or they could buy a purpose-built cellular jammer. Let governments enforce their laws, don't make something technically impossible because making it possible might enable someone to break a law.
But with modern locked-down electronics, you could only do what the manufacturer intends, and nothing more. Continuing with monetary analogies, it's like a credit card that only works for things your bank considers "good" for you.