Despite being cleared by the FCC to sell in the US, Netgear routers have a backdoor from the factory that is constantly listening for the correct SSH key, allowing anyone with it to infiltrate your network (likely for three letter agencies to use). Virtually all consumer router manufacturers have extremely poor security practices, but one way of combating this for now is to make your own router with something like OPNSense.

They also discuss the direction all of this is heading in, taking into account the new laws being proposed around the world trying to attach your identity to your device to remove anonymity, they suspect that eventually ISPs and governments may mandate the use of approved locked-down routers or wireless access points that have those backdoors in place, both for easier government surveillance and for the benefit of corporations, who would prefer to remove anonymity to access and gather more valuable user data to create more in-depth profiles for selling to advertisers, and to limit the user’s ability to block certain devices from accessing the internet, like modern TV’s that send screenshots every 3 minutes to the manufacturer to help identify what you’re watching.

I like that they opted for Sailfish instead of Android (despite having my own qualms about Sailfish), but $500 for what is likely just a customized OEM phone is excessive. This really needs to be $200 at most, IMO.