As an iOS developer, I guess I fell into the “not fanatic”, pragmatic camp. But that is changing, and any personal/family hardware I buy for now on will run free software. When I got into iOS development 11 years ago, I really liked that people now had pocket computers, and wanted to lend my skills to promoting that.
Something has always bothered me about Apple though - the walled-garden approach. Yeah, you could jail-break it, but that became harder and harder to do. You don’t really control/own the hardware. Android hardware was “more free”, but not fully. You had the proprietary blobs/etc.
Then I saw more and more of the industry going towards the “walled garden” - you can no longer choose to put whatever you want onto your computers, or at least Apple and Microsoft make it harder and harder. For example, with macOS Catalina, trying to run software from an “unregistered” (with Apple) developer you have to jump through hoops, approving them individually. When I got Manuskript to run, Gate Keeper (the program that blocks unauthorized apps) required me to approve EVERY FILE that made up Manuskript. It was ridiculous.
I think proprietary software is going to keep tightening the noose. The only real way to go is to reject it, and claim ownership of our hardware. Fully, hardware and software.
And that’s not even getting into the spying going on, phone tracking, computer tracking, etc.
I was much more in the “pragmatic camp” a few years ago, but now I think we have to, as much as possible, go “full freedom”, Richard Stallman style. We have to somehow get society to change course, to promote options where people really own their hardware, and promote a society where people can easily, conveniently avoid the surveillance around us.
My 2 cents 