I don't think you understood the parent's core point. The "masses" aren't going to find or buy an old server and install Debian and FreedomBox on it, and then set it up to run headless in a corner of their house. That's not in the area of technical expertise of most people. They might, however, buy a pre-built, pre-installed appliance that just needs to be plugged in and have a web browser pointed at it to get started.

Philosophically speaking, the more and more that products are sold with one purpose on a closed platform, the more and more of these products that are going to end up in the junk yards when they can't be extended or repurposed beyond what the manufacturer wanted (or ever thought) possible.

> They might, however, buy a pre-built, pre-installed appliance that just needs to be plugged in and have a web browser pointed at it to get started.

Don't forget about setting up the freaking wi-fi network. Apple, Google make it reasonably seamless to setup their devices from an app, say. Most third-party devices aren't as easy to setup. I have to manually enter my wi-fi password in my Tivo, eg.

> Philosophically speaking, the more and more that products are sold with one purpose on a closed platform, the more and more of these products that are going to end up in the junk yards when they can't be extended or repurposed beyond what the manufacturer wanted (or ever thought) possible.

This doesn't have to be the case, though. There's nothing stopping FreedomBox from selling a pre-made hardware solution that just has the software loaded on it that anyone can load onto a vanilla server of their choosing. (And it seems they actually do this, though it's not obvious from their website.)