9 ms·

It seems like nobody actually owns anything any more - that we're all just digital serfs living on someone else's land. I really don't know why anyone would wil

It seems like nobody actually owns anything any more - that we're all just digital serfs living on someone else's land. I really don't know why anyone would willingly make such a deal.

rglover 9y ago
Convenience, everybody's favorite little shoulder devil.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  If I had a nickel for every time I heard a stupid idea justified by "convenience" I'd be rich by now On that subject: https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  Convenience is a big deal and not a "little" shoulder devil. Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works".
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    > Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works". Perhaps not for long, if you do not accept their take-it-or-leave-it terms. Personally, I don't mind not accepting the TOS and simply leaving my software in the state that it currently is in, forever. My device is currently working acceptably, so I don't see why I need an update. But if they're saying it's going to eventually stop working, that's where any sane person should draw the line.
- rconti 9y ago
  Sometimes it's just fine though. It probably depends on the up-front cost, and what value you derive from it. If Spotify stops working tomorrow, I can stop paying them, and we can all go home friends. I wouldn't consider my subscription fees over the past couple of years "lost". On the other hand, if I had to buy a $1000 device for the privilege of paying them $10/month, my anger level would probably depend on how many years I got utility out of that $1000 device before they shut down.
  - bigiain 9y ago
    I've got a friend whose still bitter and vocal about how his car's stereo no longer "works" because Pandora pulled out of the Australian market. Sure that well-over-$1000-device's main purpose wasn't "playing music from Pandora" and it still has it's primary "get to work" utlilty, but playing music is high on the secondary feature list of a lot of vehicle purchases...
crispyambulance 9y ago
It doesn't seem like a terrible deal (http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy). What part of the privacy policy do you specifically have an issue with?
- Silhouette 9y ago
  The principle is at stake here. What the change is doesn't matter. The fact that the deal can be changed at all after a purchase has already been made is fundamentally unfair.
- ralphm 9y ago
  The part where playing audio, including that from 3rd party sources, doesn't need Sonos to get any device usage data. However they still want it 'to improve their service', and you can't turn that off. Not accepting terms means that you'll never get firmware updates.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    OK, but "usage data" just doesn't seem like a big deal. Netflix and all other content providers collect "usage data" too, as does the devices these may run on such as "Roku" and other players.
    - FilterSweep 9y ago
      Streaming Content Provider vs. Physical Device specifically made to play music you physically own or streamed from devices you physically own.
      - crispyambulance 9y ago
        You can play stuff you physically own from a Roku too. Are you saying that Sonos could arbitrarily upload your media files to their servers? Doubtful. At worst, they could do a sound-print analysis locally on the device to identify it and send the metadata to Sonos. I am trying to think of concrete examples of scenarios where actual harm would REALISTICALLY be done to individual consumers because of Sonos privacy policy.
dvdhnt 9y ago
Individuals haven't owned much in a very long time; we've been physical serfs living on someone else's land for even longer. You only "own" something so long as you pay taxes (aka rents) for the right to do so, otherwise someone, usually the government, will take it from you. Even if you don't want to play along, you can only be somewhere public for so long until you're loitering and subject to fines (more rents), confiscation (again, more rents), or removal. The whole system is pretty blatantly anti-competitive [1], detrimental to individuals [2][3], and rotting the system from the inside out [4][5]. 1. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-damn-high/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too... 2. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverted-neo-feudal-rent-seeking-abomination http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverte... 3. https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subscription-economy-hurts-startups-entrepreneurs-its-af48fe98e555 https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subsc... 4. https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ 5. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and-colleges-are-wasting-our-money https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and...
- hellbanner 9y ago
  I highly recommend "Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed" reviewing the rise of top-down city planning especially in recent modern cities like Brasilia (which systematically removed public space & spontaneous street interactions by design) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia
  - dvdhnt 9y ago
    > Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier’s urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics―the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Thanks, it sounds like something I'd love; ordering a copy!
feelin_googley 9y ago
Another view: Too many hardware products are being tethered to opaque "updates" delivered via untrusted computer network, namely, "the Internet". Security issues of the delivery mechanism aside, purchasers of these products are given no options on whether and how they may choose to "update" the manufacturer's software, or replace the manufacturer's software with an open source alternative. For example, if the manufacturer's software is closed source, the purchaser cannot verify what is in an "update". The manufacturer is under no legal obligation to tell her. As such, she may not be in a position to decide [ ] YES, I could use this modification or [ ] NO, this modification serves me no benefit The modification may serve some benefit to the manufacture, e.g., collecting data, but no benefit to the purchaser. It may be bundled with some other modification that benefits the purchaser but the purchaser cannot choose to accept or reject the modifications individually. Or the manufacturer may simply state a possibility that breeds fear among certain purchasers: that if purchaser does not accept all updates, then the hardware may "cease to function". Consideration by the purchaser of whether this is actually probable may be superseded by a perceived risk of not being able to use the hardware to its full capabilities. (For example, a router company may inform the purchaser that only the router company's software will allow certain performance specificatons to be met. If the purchaser installs an open source alternative software, then she will not be able to obtain the same performance. Of course there may be other benefits to the open source alternative besides performance, but the perceived "loss" of not reaching the performance specs advertised by the manufacturer is enough to convince many purchasers to tether the router to the manufacturer's "updates".) Purchasers own the hardware they purchase. It is the software, including "firmware", pre-installed by manufacturers that gives rise to these shenanigans. The less access and control, including choice of alternatives, that the purchaser has to such software, the better for the manufacturer who wishes to continue to exploit the sale of the hardware well-beyond the purchase date. When the purchaser of hardware is forced to accept the manufacturer's software, then I tend to agree with the comment. Regardless of whether the purchaser owns the hardware, if the manufacture controls the software, e.g. the manufacturer can "update" it at will or break it at will for anyone who does not "update", then with all due respect I submit that the manufacture ultimately controls the hardware. Thought experiment: Apply the above view to every item of hardware you have ever purchased. Consider whether it will apply to the next item you purchase.
syshum 9y ago
Open Source, Open Hardware, Open Protocols That is the only way
- ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
  Free Software, not Open Source If capitalists are not going to let us abolish copyright, we should abuse it, not pretend it does not exist.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  I've got a bunch of hardware that plugs into specific services like Pocket (ebook reader) or Spotify (my hifi). If those services go away, or for some reason I don't want to use them, there's no way for me to get equivalent functionality with some simlar service (e.g. I'd rather use pinboard.in than pocket). I would much prefer it if all of these services followed a publicly documented protocol and allowed me to configure which endpoint they talked to. I can't see this ever happening without regulation though.
leggomylibro 9y ago
The answer is, nobody does. They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. I'm not sure why courts consider that to hold any weight; to me it goes against the whole notion of informed consent in binding agreements. And to be fair, often the courts don't consider to hold any weight.
- Sir_Substance 9y ago
  >They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. You don't need to read 10 pages of fine print for every product, because it's functionally the same fine print for every product. If you don't like this, don't ever buy smart devices because they /all/ reserve the right to do this kind of stuff. I avoid smart devices like the plague. If I want my speakers smart, I'll connect them to a suitable control unit. The only thing I want from my speakers is for them to translate electrical waves into pressure waves, the more accurate the better.
  - cabalamat 9y ago
    All my speakers are low-tech analog only devices. There really is little benefit to making most of these devices "smart".
    - rconti 9y ago
      One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house.
      - _khau 9y ago
        One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house. Okay, but that's just wireless tech. Why do they need to be constantly connected to the internet and phoning home?
david-cako 9y ago
For someone like me, my decision making for any electronics I buy is "how extensible is this thing, how much control can I exert over it, and how much control does it exert over me". My willingness to have a poorer experience is unfortunately not as strong as some FOSS enthusiasts. I'm happy to relinquish some control to Apple so long as they continue to provide me with positive experiences (AirPlay, for instance). Fortunately everyone is piling into the "works with everything else" crowd, so you don't really have to opt for something particularly power-user-oriented anymore. HomeKit doesn't fall too short of an ISY-99i based system, for instance. I can only imagine if I wasn't excited by FOSS and linux to begin with. There is zero hope of escaping the cloud-trap for someone who doesn't have the knowledge or willingness.
rbcgerard 9y ago
Because no one really makes such a deal in an informed manner...imagine if products had a big warning label "future software updates are not included"
- arghimonmobile2 9y ago
  It's even worse than that though. Even if you chose to forego updates promising features or better security, it seems like this product's box should actually say "not guaranteed to continue working past arbitrary dates, even if the hardware is still fine!"
bogomipz 9y ago
This is so true. I refused to update a second generation Apple TV when after several updates I realized the "updates" added zero functionality to then end user. They were just occasions to put new paid-placement crapware on the home screen. I kept up this refusal to update partly out of stubbornness and partly as an experiment. Eventually, after a few months Apple just applied the update without asking. It was at this moment that I realized "I may have purchased this device but I certainly don't own it."
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  The list of services on older Apple TVs was online (and cached). The services were more like websites than like apps and you could supply your own by manipulating DNS and installing your own certificates. It could change without firmware updates.

It seems like nobody actually owns anything any more - that we're all just digital serfs living on someone else's land. I really don't know why anyone would willingly make such a deal.

rglover 9y ago

Convenience, everybody's favorite little shoulder devil.

raverbashing 9y ago
If I had a nickel for every time I heard a stupid idea justified by "convenience" I'd be rich by now On that subject: https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/895881274614665217
crispyambulance 9y ago
Convenience is a big deal and not a "little" shoulder devil. Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works".
- ryandrake 9y ago
  > Sonos sounds great, has nice features and "just works". Perhaps not for long, if you do not accept their take-it-or-leave-it terms. Personally, I don't mind not accepting the TOS and simply leaving my software in the state that it currently is in, forever. My device is currently working acceptably, so I don't see why I need an update. But if they're saying it's going to eventually stop working, that's where any sane person should draw the line.
rconti 9y ago
Sometimes it's just fine though. It probably depends on the up-front cost, and what value you derive from it. If Spotify stops working tomorrow, I can stop paying them, and we can all go home friends. I wouldn't consider my subscription fees over the past couple of years "lost". On the other hand, if I had to buy a $1000 device for the privilege of paying them $10/month, my anger level would probably depend on how many years I got utility out of that $1000 device before they shut down.
- bigiain 9y ago
  I've got a friend whose still bitter and vocal about how his car's stereo no longer "works" because Pandora pulled out of the Australian market. Sure that well-over-$1000-device's main purpose wasn't "playing music from Pandora" and it still has it's primary "get to work" utlilty, but playing music is high on the secondary feature list of a lot of vehicle purchases...

crispyambulance 9y ago

It doesn't seem like a terrible deal (http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy). What part of the privacy policy do you specifically have an issue with?

Silhouette 9y ago
The principle is at stake here. What the change is doesn't matter. The fact that the deal can be changed at all after a purchase has already been made is fundamentally unfair.
ralphm 9y ago
The part where playing audio, including that from 3rd party sources, doesn't need Sonos to get any device usage data. However they still want it 'to improve their service', and you can't turn that off. Not accepting terms means that you'll never get firmware updates.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  OK, but "usage data" just doesn't seem like a big deal. Netflix and all other content providers collect "usage data" too, as does the devices these may run on such as "Roku" and other players.
  - FilterSweep 9y ago
    Streaming Content Provider vs. Physical Device specifically made to play music you physically own or streamed from devices you physically own.
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      You can play stuff you physically own from a Roku too. Are you saying that Sonos could arbitrarily upload your media files to their servers? Doubtful. At worst, they could do a sound-print analysis locally on the device to identify it and send the metadata to Sonos. I am trying to think of concrete examples of scenarios where actual harm would REALISTICALLY be done to individual consumers because of Sonos privacy policy.

dvdhnt 9y ago

Individuals haven't owned much in a very long time; we've been physical serfs living on someone else's land for even longer. You only "own" something so long as you pay taxes (aka rents) for the right to do so, otherwise someone, usually the government, will take it from you. Even if you don't want to play along, you can only be somewhere public for so long until you're loitering and subject to fines (more rents), confiscation (again, more rents), or removal. The whole system is pretty blatantly anti-competitive [1], detrimental to individuals [2][3], and rotting the system from the inside out [4][5]. 1. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-damn-high/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too... 2. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverted-neo-feudal-rent-seeking-abomination http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverte... 3. https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subscription-economy-hurts-startups-entrepreneurs-its-af48fe98e555 https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subsc... 4. https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/ 5. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and-colleges-are-wasting-our-money https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and...

hellbanner 9y ago
I highly recommend "Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed" reviewing the rise of top-down city planning especially in recent modern cities like Brasilia (which systematically removed public space & spontaneous street interactions by design) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia
- dvdhnt 9y ago
  > Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier’s urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics―the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Thanks, it sounds like something I'd love; ordering a copy!

feelin_googley 9y ago

Another view: Too many hardware products are being tethered to opaque "updates" delivered via untrusted computer network, namely, "the Internet". Security issues of the delivery mechanism aside, purchasers of these products are given no options on whether and how they may choose to "update" the manufacturer's software, or replace the manufacturer's software with an open source alternative. For example, if the manufacturer's software is closed source, the purchaser cannot verify what is in an "update". The manufacturer is under no legal obligation to tell her. As such, she may not be in a position to decide [ ] YES, I could use this modification or [ ] NO, this modification serves me no benefit The modification may serve some benefit to the manufacture, e.g., collecting data, but no benefit to the purchaser. It may be bundled with some other modification that benefits the purchaser but the purchaser cannot choose to accept or reject the modifications individually. Or the manufacturer may simply state a possibility that breeds fear among certain purchasers: that if purchaser does not accept all updates, then the hardware may "cease to function". Consideration by the purchaser of whether this is actually probable may be superseded by a perceived risk of not being able to use the hardware to its full capabilities. (For example, a router company may inform the purchaser that only the router company's software will allow certain performance specificatons to be met. If the purchaser installs an open source alternative software, then she will not be able to obtain the same performance. Of course there may be other benefits to the open source alternative besides performance, but the perceived "loss" of not reaching the performance specs advertised by the manufacturer is enough to convince many purchasers to tether the router to the manufacturer's "updates".) Purchasers own the hardware they purchase. It is the software, including "firmware", pre-installed by manufacturers that gives rise to these shenanigans. The less access and control, including choice of alternatives, that the purchaser has to such software, the better for the manufacturer who wishes to continue to exploit the sale of the hardware well-beyond the purchase date. When the purchaser of hardware is forced to accept the manufacturer's software, then I tend to agree with the comment. Regardless of whether the purchaser owns the hardware, if the manufacture controls the software, e.g. the manufacturer can "update" it at will or break it at will for anyone who does not "update", then with all due respect I submit that the manufacture ultimately controls the hardware. Thought experiment: Apply the above view to every item of hardware you have ever purchased. Consider whether it will apply to the next item you purchase.

syshum 9y ago

Open Source, Open Hardware, Open Protocols That is the only way

ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
Free Software, not Open Source If capitalists are not going to let us abolish copyright, we should abuse it, not pretend it does not exist.
kybernetikos 9y ago
I've got a bunch of hardware that plugs into specific services like Pocket (ebook reader) or Spotify (my hifi). If those services go away, or for some reason I don't want to use them, there's no way for me to get equivalent functionality with some simlar service (e.g. I'd rather use pinboard.in than pocket). I would much prefer it if all of these services followed a publicly documented protocol and allowed me to configure which endpoint they talked to. I can't see this ever happening without regulation though.

leggomylibro 9y ago

The answer is, nobody does. They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. I'm not sure why courts consider that to hold any weight; to me it goes against the whole notion of informed consent in binding agreements. And to be fair, often the courts don't consider to hold any weight.

Sir_Substance 9y ago
>They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is. You don't need to read 10 pages of fine print for every product, because it's functionally the same fine print for every product. If you don't like this, don't ever buy smart devices because they /all/ reserve the right to do this kind of stuff. I avoid smart devices like the plague. If I want my speakers smart, I'll connect them to a suitable control unit. The only thing I want from my speakers is for them to translate electrical waves into pressure waves, the more accurate the better.
- cabalamat 9y ago
  All my speakers are low-tech analog only devices. There really is little benefit to making most of these devices "smart".
  - rconti 9y ago
    One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house.
    - _khau 9y ago
      One benefit is not drilling holes in my walls to run speaker wire all over the place. Another benefit is not having an audio player tethered in one place. A third benefit is being able to change the audio settings from any one of a half dozen devices in my house. Okay, but that's just wireless tech. Why do they need to be constantly connected to the internet and phoning home?

david-cako 9y ago

For someone like me, my decision making for any electronics I buy is "how extensible is this thing, how much control can I exert over it, and how much control does it exert over me". My willingness to have a poorer experience is unfortunately not as strong as some FOSS enthusiasts. I'm happy to relinquish some control to Apple so long as they continue to provide me with positive experiences (AirPlay, for instance). Fortunately everyone is piling into the "works with everything else" crowd, so you don't really have to opt for something particularly power-user-oriented anymore. HomeKit doesn't fall too short of an ISY-99i based system, for instance. I can only imagine if I wasn't excited by FOSS and linux to begin with. There is zero hope of escaping the cloud-trap for someone who doesn't have the knowledge or willingness.

rbcgerard 9y ago

Because no one really makes such a deal in an informed manner...imagine if products had a big warning label "future software updates are not included"

arghimonmobile2 9y ago
It's even worse than that though. Even if you chose to forego updates promising features or better security, it seems like this product's box should actually say "not guaranteed to continue working past arbitrary dates, even if the hardware is still fine!"

bogomipz 9y ago

This is so true. I refused to update a second generation Apple TV when after several updates I realized the "updates" added zero functionality to then end user. They were just occasions to put new paid-placement crapware on the home screen. I kept up this refusal to update partly out of stubbornness and partly as an experiment. Eventually, after a few months Apple just applied the update without asking. It was at this moment that I realized "I may have purchased this device but I certainly don't own it."

tinus_hn 9y ago
The list of services on older Apple TVs was online (and cached). The services were more like websites than like apps and you could supply your own by manipulating DNS and installing your own certificates. It could change without firmware updates.