Comment by heavyset_go

Laptops and desktops are nearly as bad.

You can't share an app you develop without first paying Apple and Microsoft a recurring fee and also get their explicit permission for every update to it.

At any point, for any reason, they can decide they don't like you and Gatekeeper and/or Defender will block your app from running on nearly every computer.

Open source operating systems are closer, but there are still PCs that have locked bootloaders.

All the pieces are in place, all vendors have to do is flip a bit and you'll never run anything without permission again. And it will happen because think of the children/national security/hackers/scammers/trillion dollar companies' bottom lines.