One technical person could make this work for everyone else.
I have a few pieces of hardware right now that are "broken" because the companies that made them went of business. These products have millions of owners. With the source code and encryption keys I could personally make this hardware work for those users indefinitely. And there are hundreds (if not thousands) of users just like me.
> One technical person could make this work for everyone else.
Yup. An oft-missed but crucial point.
The benefit of software freedoms isn't that everyone has to do everything themselves. The benefit is that everyone can do it themselves if they like, but they can also delegate the job to anyone else that wants to take it, like someone's friendly neighbourhood techie, or a small local business. In this way, free software actually promotes free markets, by enabling unrestricted competition on adding value on top of what free software offers (vs. locking it down and making money by rent seeking).
I have a few pieces of hardware right now that are "broken" because the companies that made them went of business. These products have millions of owners. With the source code and encryption keys I could personally make this hardware work for those users indefinitely. And there are hundreds (if not thousands) of users just like me.