Remote attestation is the true enemy of your freedom. The power of the authoritarian corporatocracy to force you to use only the (entire) systems they control. It's worth reading https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html again just to see how prescient Stallman was.
I think it’s also worth asking why he didn’t have more impact despite pretty clearly seeing this problem. Part of the answer has to be resource disparities but I don’t think it’s just that - Linux didn’t really capitalize at all on Microsoft’s lost decade, and much of the innovation in security has happened on other platforms. I think there’s also some kind of blind spot in the open source community where a lot of people see this as something other people need, not them personally.
I've been saying this ad nauseum forever and I'm not the only one.
A related problem is that the OSS world is mostly tech enthusiasts. It's like having car people design cars. They'd be full of special switches and options and stuff that car people want. Car people don't understand that most people hate cars. What they like is mobility. Same goes for computers. Most people hate computers. They just like what computers let them do: communication, making content, getting their work done, etc.
Most "car people" would agree that changing the oil in your car is super easy. To me, it is not easy. It's not something I'm willing to do, even though I know the steps of how to do it. I just don't know what I don't know. When I have my oil changed, the mechanic tells me what I should be concerned about. He tells me what upcoming work I need to have done, how much it will cost, and what could happen if I don't do it. He has experience, expertise, and specialized tools. He had knowledge gathered over years to be highly proficient in his profession.
I could do those things. I could read, and listen, and learn. I could be under my car every day learning new things about how to install this, or replace that. But I don't really have the drive or inclination to do so. I'd rather leave it to the pro. I also have the added novice-worry of screwing something up, and hurting myself or others as a result. I don't want that kind of pressure. I don't want my car breaking down while doing some long journey - I just want it to run when I need it to run, without any scary warning lights coming up on my dashboard.
To bring the analogy back to computers, I still know people - people in their 20's or 30's - who do not know how to copy and paste with keyboard shortcuts. I will sit there and see them highlight, right-click, click copy, move their cursor, left-click, right-click, choose paste. I'll tell them how much time they could save if they "just did ..." and get a basic "Yeah...I just don't really care though, ya know? This works." The thing is, there is no investment on their part to want or need to do that more efficiently. They get by well enough with not bothering.
They could get super into computers, and learn something as "technical" as `git clone https: //github.com/some/repo` and follow the process to configure and run a script. They could learn to do those things. But they don't really have that time to invest in it, or don't have that passion for it, or have a professional investment in needing to do it.
They want it to work. They want to not get hacked. They want to not have to think about computers at all. Computers are the interface to do "the thing" more easily. And if the computer breaks? They want it fixed so it won't happen again. The computer "does the internet thing". And I can respect that because they focus their energy into knowledge into other topics that I don't have a clue about, the same way I don't have a clue about cars, even if I know oil changes are "easy".
The great majority of people don't know or understand the difference between single click and double click. This baffled me the first time I found out. Age or education don't matter.
If you dig a little deeper you discover that most people think double-click is a kind of equivalent of "clicking louder". As if sometimes, for some reason, the computer becomes hard-of-hearing. It's both a little sad and quite funny.