"Free Software Foundation position on firmware ... is that if a device has ... firmware ... in a form that users can’t modify, then the system as a whole is not free software. This is technically correct but doesn’t logically imply that the right strategy for advancing free software is to forbid firmware blobs"
It may not be the convenient thing for novice users, but it is an important strategy to "dogfood" fully-free systems, i.e. obtain them, run them, and make efforts to get them to work as seamlessly as possible. This was done with OS-level-and-up software - for the most part - and we have been reaping great rewards all around from those efforts. If it can be done for the full stack of hardware and software, this will be very beneficial and in some aspects even liberating.
Again, joe user is probably better off with a more pragmatic approach at the moment. But joe user can still choose a FOSS operating system, which a few decades ago was not realistic.
It may not be the convenient thing for novice users, but it is an important strategy to "dogfood" fully-free systems, i.e. obtain them, run them, and make efforts to get them to work as seamlessly as possible. This was done with OS-level-and-up software - for the most part - and we have been reaping great rewards all around from those efforts. If it can be done for the full stack of hardware and software, this will be very beneficial and in some aspects even liberating.
Again, joe user is probably better off with a more pragmatic approach at the moment. But joe user can still choose a FOSS operating system, which a few decades ago was not realistic.