That's almost never what they say. Generally the laws say that if you open it up you violate your warranty and that if you violate the terms of the software your license to operate that software is revoked.

Hardware can't be "licensed" because it's a physical good, not an intellectual concept. Software that runs on hardware can't be owned unless it's as part of the whole - if you owned the software on your phone, you would be okay under the law to duplicate it and resell it. Theoretically software could be a co-op- everyone who runs it "owns" 1/n of the overall, made up of n shares - but realistically speaking it's more convenient to license the use of software.

Cars are so expensive that few people are incentivized to violate their warranties. In general, the maintenance of vehicles is part and parcel of the ownership experience. It's pretty clear that as our technology becomes more complex, that maintenance must necessarily become more sophisticated and sophisticated maintenance requires sophisticated contracts.

The way to look at it is as a financial transaction. The question is who wishes to undertake the inconvenience of resale, and who wishes to undertake the inconvenience of depreciation. One of the wisest parables I've read this year came from a book on telecom, actually - the author asserted that there's really only one product, the only difference is how you pay for it.