It sounds reasonable to have the opportunity to buy hardware without software you do not intend to use. Though, I do assume that from the POV of the company selling the software, it would be ideal for the customer to not have a choice. I guess companies also want free ice creams and pony rides.
Let's say you and I bump into each other in the town square and we each have some things we might be willing to give the other if we get the right thing in return. In that situation I'd think both sides have the right to offer what they like and both sides can choose freely whether to accept what is offered.
What is different about this town square and your relationship to say Dell?
That's easy: The town square bump situation involves having the right to offer what you like and choosing freely, and my relationship to, say, Dell, or Lenovo, or Framework, or Apple, is that I can have money, they can build hardware, I can spend money on their hardware, and I might even be able to buy hardware+software that I like with the money I have.
What I don't have is a factory/expertise/resources to build the hardware myself if Dell, Lenovo, or Apple decide to start offering things that you or I do not want. I was very careful to say as such: If you're selling the software, the ideal situation for you would be that the buyers have no other choice other than you. That's the "free pony ride" you think customers are wanting, but these companies are actually getting.
The world doesn't run on analogies and situations don't become equal because they look similar. Evidently you could argue about incentives to build software going away, or anything else, but I would like to reiterate that the ideal situation for me, as a customer, would be for me to have a _choice_ in whether I buy the software or not. Not having the choice, i.e., by being told to "just not buy hardware" is not the ideal situation for me as a customer.
And just as you are arguing for the ideal situation for the companies, I'm arguing for the ideal situation for the customer.
