> Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so...

At least in Europe, a company can't just remove features from a device.

If a product doesn't do what you can reasonably expect, this is considered fraud and you can go back to the store and demand compensation.