Brandon Jackson came home one day in May 2023 to find he couldn't turn on his lights. His smart locks wouldn't respond. His Amazon Echo devices were completely disabled.
When he called Amazon, the explanation was stunning: a delivery driver had reported hearing a racial slur from his doorbell. Amazon had remotely disabled his entire smart home pending investigation.
No one had been home when the package was delivered. Jackson's security footage showed the truth: his automated doorbell had said "Excuse me, can I help you?" The driver wearing headphones misheard it.
Jackson sent the video evidence immediately. Amazon kept his account locked for nearly a week anyway. No apology when they finally restored access. No explanation for why a single accusation was enough to disable thousands of dollars of hardware without investigation.
Here's what makes this truly alarming: Jackson's conclusion wasn't about the false accusation. It was about ownership itself.
"If you bought a toaster, it doesn't matter what you did, how bad of a person you were, how good of a person you are, you still own the toaster. And if you really did do something that was so horrible and bad, that shouldn't be Amazon's call."
The problem isn't that Amazon made a mistake. The problem is that Amazon believes they have the authority to judge your behavior and disable products you purchased based on that judgment. Whether their judgment is accurate is irrelevant. They shouldn't have that power at all.
The Car You Don't Own
In December 2019, Alec bought a used Tesla Model S from a dealer. The car came with Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving listed on the window sticker. Those features were why he bought it.
Weeks later, he took the car to Tesla for a software upgrade. When he left, those features were gone. Deleted remotely.
Tesla's explanation: the car was "incorrectly configured." The features shouldn't have been there. If Alec wanted them back, he'd need to pay Tesla thousands of dollars.
He had bought a car with specific features. After purchase, the manufacturer reached in remotely and removed them. Then offered to sell them back.
This wasn't isolated. Another owner woke up one morning to find his Tesla had lost 80 miles of range overnight. Tesla performed an "audit" and decided his battery should be software-limited. They wanted $4,500 to restore capacity the car physically possessed.
Tesla only reversed these decisions after public backlash. Not because what they did was wrong, but because enough people noticed.
Why Linux Is Different
Linux doesn't work this way. It can't.
The fundamental difference isn't technical sophistication or better security. It's who controls the system.
When you run Windows, Microsoft controls updates, decides what software you can install, collects usage data, and can remotely modify features. When you use an iPhone, Apple decides which apps are allowed, what repairs are permitted, and whether your battery charges at full speed. The hardware is in your possession, but the control remains with the corporation.
Community-driven Linux distributions can't disable your computer remotely because there's no corporation with the authority to do so.
There's no board of directors prioritizing quarterly earnings over user freedom. No executive making unilateral decisions about surveillance. No shareholders demanding growth through data extraction. Just volunteers building tools they want to use, governed by communities that can fork the project if leadership betrays them.
When Debian releases an update, it's because the community decided it was ready, not because a fiscal quarter ended. When you install software, it comes from community-maintained repositories, not app stores designed to extract fees. When something doesn't work the way you want, you can change it. The source code is public. The decisions are transparent.
This is the immunity Linux provides: not perfection, but accountability.
Your computer can't be disabled remotely because there's no remote authority to disable it. Features can't be removed after purchase because no corporation owns the right to do so. Your system answers to you, not to investors.
A Word of Caution
Not all Linux distributions maintain this independence equally. Some are backed by corporations with business models, and those business models can create compromises that undermine the very freedoms Linux is supposed to protect.
Choosing the right distribution matters, but that's a conversation for another post.
For now, understand this: when you switch to using Linux, you're taking back genuine ownership of your computer. This isn't like switching from Windows to Mac. It's switching from corporate control to user freedom.
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