Look at what you call "innovation" today, what is it? Nothing about having locked down computers will prevent random folks from creating another Instagram. Look at the demo day for YC, how many of those demos require that the people install new program code on their "customer's" computer?
But a fully general purpose piece of hardware, could become much more expensive in the future.
I don't know, maybe 20 years ago average young computer hobbyists were writing small OSes, but today, people write websites and mobile apps. 20 years ago everything was simpler. You could learn about ins and outs of 8086 in a week, and it was "practical" to have such low-level access to hardware. Today, the landscape has changed. We should change too.
Look at what you call "innovation" today, what is it? Nothing about having locked down computers will prevent random folks from creating another Instagram. Look at the demo day for YC, how many of those demos require that the people install new program code on their "customer's" computer?
But a fully general purpose piece of hardware, could become much more expensive in the future.