Freedom issues of graphics cards, wireless NICs and imaging devices
When I was doing scientific calculations in my lab using GNU/Linux, I was immediately aware of the freedom issue of graphics cards, because I could never get correct resolution when I used ATI/AMD. I could always get 1024*768 at best and 640*480 at worst. Therefore our lab switched to Nvidia. At least the resolution problem was solved. I brought a sack of ATI/AMD graphics cards (many kilos) to the dark market and sold them.
But I wasn't aware of the freedom issues of wireless NICs or imaging devices (printer, scanner, etc.) for quite a long time. My notebooks were equipped with Atheros; my PCI/e cards for desktops happened to be Atheros, too. My lab's printer and scanner happened to work without any blob as well. When several years later someone told me that most wireless NICs didn't work on Debian/Trisquel, I didn't believe it at first.
When I was in charge of my lab's hardware, I disposed of so many old hardware (i.e., carry them in sacks to the dark market). Fortunately I didn't throw away any freedom-respecting hardware (mainly Atheros wireless NICs).
Indeed none of this seems to be going in the right direction.
Going back to CLI only is not really an option for most of us, so the situation could only be improved by forcing the hand of manufacturers. The said manufacturers growing larger by the minute, I have no idea where to look for hope.
Manufacturers naturally want to maximize their profits by maltreating the users, because this is a capitalist/imperialist world.
Therefore, GNU/Linux distributions should not cover the freedom issue by incorporating non-free firmware, in order to provide "better user experience", just like Ubuntu does. With these practices, the users lose the vigilance against non-free hardware.
This will finally backfire on Ubuntu, too. Because when users are no longer vigilant against non-free firmware, they buy lots of such non-free firmware, and the manufacturers can aggressively make more non-free hardware and impose restrictions even harder to circumvent on those hardware. In turn, Ubuntu will sooner or later be unable to support them. Once Ubuntu could no longer please its users by offering "better user experience", it reaches is much-deserved demise.
Haven't you seen that Ubuntu already lost so many users recently?
Of course Ubuntu is not the right place to look for hope. They lost me years ago to Trisquel, even though I kept using the same hardware without a glitch (I guess it is simply old enough not to have needed any proprietary firmware). I doubt it is librebootable, though.
However, that only makes the prospects more gloomy, since Trisquel itself is based on Ubuntu. So, again, it seems that only by forcing the hand of the manufacturers could the situation be improved in the long run. Making software a public good, and thus proprietary software illegal, could work too. Proprietary software vendors should at least be made to pay for cleaning it, not unlike polluters should be made to pay for cleaning polluted air, water or land.
I have a feeling that going minimalist will be the only option left in time, once the current wave of software freedom has been washed away by the capitalist cliff you mention and our plush situation has shrunk back to skin and bones. Giving up computing for good is also always an option. I keep a stock of ball pens and paper in case I have to write my analog memoirs. Not for reading of course, just to be able to brag about writing my memoirs.
What's the freedom status of Intel integrated graphics, nadebula?
Up to Broadwell, Intel integrated graphics were good.
Starting Skylake, they began to require non-free firmware. But they still worked fairly well without firmware.
Beware that certain modern Intel processors' "integrated graphics" are from AMD, too.
OK good to know. So for most modern Intel chips, I should be able to do basic office work without firmware?
> without firmware
You are still paying for non-free firmware, even though you are not using it, and thus sending your bucks as a gift to the devil. If you are using second-hand stuff, then of course the situation is somewhat different.
Last time I did that was because I was curious about how ugly Windows 8 really looked. I was so shocked by what I saw that I immediately flushed it, thus voiding any possibility to get the OS license fee back into my pocket. I felt so bad about it that I swore I would keep using the same hardware until at least Trisquel 10.