Comment by surgical_fire

Being in control of your own computing device was always a niche. The vast majority of people are not interested in computing itself, only in the output. For that majority, this is fine.

The niche is still there, probably as big as it was before. For example, as I grew weary of being subject to services I have little control over, I set up my own home server using a refurbished PC. It has been an amazing journey so far. But I don't think a normie would ever get interested in buying a refurbished Dell, install Debian on it, and set up their own services there.

As long as there is a niche of people interested in buying their own computers, there will be companies willing to fill that niche.