I think the parent is worried about the possible mandatory ubiquity of AR devices more than anything. As long as skipping a tech is socially acceptable and does not impose impractical costs (try living without interacting with a computer or a phone in a big city for a month and see how well it goes), AR vendors will have to have consumers interests in mind. As soon as AR becomes pragmatically unavoidable, vendors can and will exploit their leverage to impose additional costs on consumers to their own benefit, because opting out of AR will be even worse than swallowing it whole (welcome to game theory).
This is true of all technology advances. See electricity, motorized vehicles, phones, email (or the earlier form, the telegraph), more generally the internet and computers. You can’t ride your horse everywhere anymore, if you want to contact a company, you can probably still write them a letter, but if it’s urgent, you’re going to want to call or email them. Technology changes things, whether you like it or not, and unfortunately you just have to get over that. Society doesn’t function the same as in the 1800’s, and that’s ok.
