https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw_udS5b9jI
My second computer was an Acorn Electron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Electron) (First was a ZX81 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81)).
I'm amazed to this day that the UK Government allowed ARM to be sold to Japan. Talk about dropping the ball !
Apple got whiplash from arm too i think.
The sad thing is that people are still parroting the notion that "ARM is the future". Yeah, it may be the future of corporate computing, but it definitely will be the death of home computers as we know. Big tech corpos are salivating at the prospect of having the same "control" (i.e., restrictions) on PCs as they have on mobile devices that run for example Android.
I get where you are coming from but I'm not quite as pessimistic. ARM don't make CPU's. Other companies make ARM CPU's based on ARM's designs. ARM can't necessarily be blamed for what other companies choose to do with ARM's designs.
For a long time there was no 'Bios' for arm. Each manufacturer tended to have their own solution or used customized, locked down, U-Boot etc.
Few ARM CPU's could boot a mainline Linux kernel so that was all fragmented as well.
Thinkings have improved in both regards. But you are right that many companies would like to lock down our devices so we don't 'own' them. All you can can do is be the change you (don't) want to see and not buy them. IMHO they'll always be open devices, maybe not mainstream though ? Also I'd not be at all surprised if, in the future, banks etc refuse to allow access to their online portals if your using one. Like many do with rooted phones?
Time will tell ?
Of course ARM as architecture can't be blamed, yes, but what I meant was the overreach the companies around implementing it will impose on their users.