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>.. Orwellian customer control business model? When I think of "Orwellian" I think of government control that is forced upon the individual, not simply bad pra
by j_m_b 10y ago
>.. Orwellian customer control business model?
When I think of "Orwellian" I think of government control that is forced upon the individual, not simply bad practices of a few players in a single industry. Of course someone could just buy another make of printer. It's not like they have no other choice, lots of people suggested Brother printers as good alternatives when this story first made the rounds. They could make prints at an office supply company or even their local library.
- zimbatm 10y agoGovernment control like DMCA is very much put in place by big corporations trough the corruption of congress. I'm not saying the control is total but we're certainly getting there. Even if there are alternatives today they are getting slowly stripped away through more regulation and reallocation of funding. It's not a far stretch to entertain the view that we're under Orwellian control.
- TheRealPomax 10y agoThat does not make the term apply to this situation. Orwellian is strictly about the relationship between the people and the government. It's a good term, great to use, but not applicable in this case. Here, HP is allowed to exploit the rules of the free market in a way that is both wasteful and unethical, but legal. Not because of Orwellian practices (we are not told by the government to use HP unquestionably) but rather quite the opposite: the government is in fact explicitly NOT allowed to formalise the ethics here through law. Any kind of governmental regulation here is seen as "the government interfering with the free market", and as idiotic as that claim is, it seems deeply entrenched in the thought patterns of those who can influence the legal landsdcape.