They need the illusion of trustworthy hardware so they can operate as if it is. If it turns out people need actual control over their own things and information for some reason, like to prevent subversion of our society from the inside, from the peak of power and privilege... we might just be shit out of luck.
Depends. Farmers can't live with that illusion, they prefer something they can fix themselves (that is a recurring topic on HN.). It's possible more enterprises will end up like that as the current wave of outsourcing everything will ebb.
I would say the farm equipment DRM isn't even giving the illusion of control. It's plainly obvious it restricts the equipment's use to everyone who owns them, and not in some lawfully required way. Backdoored/coincidentally-flawed software and hardware and things like that which are pervasive in tech don't get in people's way so much. As soon as flaws become more widely known they get patched. Surveillance doesn't get in people's way, directly. DRM like EME stops some copying but goes unnoticed by most, and can be rationalized easier than the farm equipment.
