You buy the hardware.
You pay the full price. Yet the moment you power it on, #Apple or #Microsoft quietly slides the real title deed into their pocket.
They call it #security.
What it actually is: a #lease.
You get to use the hardware they designed, but only on their terms.
Install what they approve.
Run what they permit.
Speak only in the language they haven’t decided to censor yet.
The latest reminder came when #Apple removed VPN apps and BitChat (and other apps) from national App Stores in countries that asked so.
No due process.
No appeal.
One day the app is there; the next morning the hardware your paid is suddenly missing tools that let you speak freely.
Same story on #Windows laptops with the kernel-level controls that decide what code is allowed to run.
This is why the reflexive phrase “my phone,” “my laptop,” “my device” has become a kind of polite self-delusion.
It’s their phone now!! Their laptop!!You are the #tenant !!
The #landlord can change the locks on your #software at any time, in any country, for any reason, or for no reason at all.
That’s the deeper point.
#Nostr exists precisely because the old internet forgot who was supposed to own what. On #Nostr there is no central app store that can delete your ability to post, to DM, to relay, or to run the exact client you want.
#nostr protocol doesn’t ask #Apple or #Microsoft for permission to exist.
When someone on #nostr says “my feed,” they actually mean it.
The keys are yours even if it lives on hardware that Apple still technically “licenses.”
The difference is philosophical but decisive: the hardware is leased, the network is owned by you.
This is why the language matters.
Call it their phone. Call it their laptop. It’s not cynical; it’s clarifying.
It reminds you that true ownership today is disappearing fast.
With #NOSTR you are quietly reclaiming ownership.
The hardware may still belong to them.
But your voice, your real uncensorable voice finally belongs to you again.
