A taxi is still a car but we use a different word to differentiate the mode of operation. The difference in language infers different usage of the same machine.
Therefore going by car is understood as something different then going by taxi. In relation to this issue, it's like you rented a car but you get a taxi instead (selected operator controls the vehicle instead of you). Most people would not be pleased.
The problem being that phone or tablet is understood to be similar to computer while really they are not. So perhaps a different term to highlight this difference is not strange or counter-productive. Do you call your "smart tv" a computer in daily conversation?
What if it only drives along select predetermined monetised routes?
I don’t see the value in hypotheticals like that. If the claim is that a computer is not really a computer unless every user can do any low level operations they want, is it also true that a car is not really a car unless every user can do any low level operations they want?
Our argument shouldn't be about the device's capabilities, but about its ownership. And increasingly, as this enshittification progresses, the person buying the device is becoming less and less its owner.
You could own a race car that cannot legally be driven on any public roads and it’s still a car.
I agree with brookst that this sort of redefinition is a poor rhetorical tool.
The apparent user experience between a computer and a mobile are markedly different - especially if you were a Windows user circa 10 years ago. If you were a Windows user in the 90's to 00's, it's nearly unrecognizable in how much ownership you feel over your own device.
Yes! This reminds me of Stallman who is in my opinion a visionary decades ahead of his time, but in terms of marketing he did that a lot and it ended up just distracting from the conversation. All of a sudden instead of discussing the actual issue, we're disussing rhetoric.
The meaning of words drifts when the situation changes.