Point is, the user's wishes should be respected. He bought the device, pays for the service, and should be able to do what he wants with it, not what his carrier or the device manufacturer wants to allow him to do.
The Free Software movement is in much better shape in the desktop computer world than it is on mobile, but this is something that is going to be up to us to change. It's going to be a long road, but we must begin by talking about Free Software and educating all of the new smartphone users that have flooded into these amazing computing devices in the last several years.
Keep in mind also that we are already at the point that everything is a computer, or will be one soon. The mobile devices are just the first wave. Next it will be your refrigerator, etc. Do you really want your refrigerator firmware to refuse to upgrade itself, planned obsolescence, etc. so that it stops working and you have to buy a new one every 2 years? Because that is the direction we are heading in folks, if we don't start demanding products that respect the user's wishes.
