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> It is a crime under French law to intentionally shorten the life of any product in order to promote sales. The French consumer protection agency has the power

> It is a crime under French law to intentionally shorten the life of any product in order to promote sales. The French consumer protection agency has the power to fine up to 5% of annual turnover or impose a jail term. Nice law.

megaman8 8y ago
normally i'm against heavy handed government, but in the case of cell phones and other electronic devices being slowed down by companies/made unusable I am greatly in favor of this!
- Illniyar 8y ago
  Why? Seems like a perfect thing for "market forces" to decide - if people don't like what apple are doing they should buy something else or downgrade, there are many alternatives
  - nathan_long 8y ago
    > Seems like a perfect thing for "market forces" to decide I'm not sure about that. Consumers can easily tell which phone is less expensive, which one has more storage, etc. It is much harder to know, much less decide based on, which ones will last a long time. Especially since by the time we can confidently say "these last 5 years", you can't buy that model anymore. This is a problem with nearly anything more complex than a kitchen knife.
    - Illniyar 8y ago
      Good point.
    - AzMoo_ 8y ago
      I think you are underestimating kitchen knives tbh.
  - ken 8y ago
    Because a smartphone is a conglomeration of billions of design decisions, and there's only a couple product choices today when it comes to smartphone ecosystems. If your answer is "market forces" for even 3 different attributes of the phone, then the market simply cannot support being able to control them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_Requisite_Variety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_R... The Invisible Hand worked great when you had 1000 people making hammers and sewing pants and harvesting wheat. It doesn't work so well when you've got 2 multi-national companies producing handheld supercomputers. Writing a regulation or law is how the market (i.e., the people collectively) tell an industry that it needs to do something, always. The industry can't just hide behind "I'm going to do things A and B that you hate, because I'm also doing things C, D, and E that you can't live without".
    - Illniyar 8y ago
      Android has dozens of manufacturers, each making changes to the underlying os (which is why upgrading takes so long). There are small manufacturers like the essential phone and that 50000$ phone that is supposed to be secure. While apple is definitely a monopoly in the ios market the phone market as a whole is definitely not an oligopoly
      - ken 8y ago
        Why do you say that? It sure looks like it to me. Samsung and Apple are the giants, with a couple others like LG/Motorola/Huawei making up almost all of the rest. Googling for "smartphone oligopoly" turns up a bunch of economics and investing webpages that use smartphones as their prime example. Is a $50,000 phone a realistic alternative to an iPhone? The whole point of this exercise is to get a phone that is well-supported for longer. Should I really believe that an Android name from a no-name brand is going to have better long-term support? On what would I base that? The "which is why upgrading takes so long" is a perfect example of an axis upon which consumers, via the market, have no control. If you want the latest version of Android, there's only 2 brands that offer it so far (Google and OnePlus), so you'd better agree with all of the other decisions that one of these two made.
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    For a lot of people you don't just change phone. A phone nowadays was like buying a computer back then, it can be a huge investment
- draw_down 8y ago
  I'm also against heavy handed government except all the times when I'm not.

megaman8 8y ago

normally i'm against heavy handed government, but in the case of cell phones and other electronic devices being slowed down by companies/made unusable I am greatly in favor of this!

Illniyar 8y ago
Why? Seems like a perfect thing for "market forces" to decide - if people don't like what apple are doing they should buy something else or downgrade, there are many alternatives
- nathan_long 8y ago
  > Seems like a perfect thing for "market forces" to decide I'm not sure about that. Consumers can easily tell which phone is less expensive, which one has more storage, etc. It is much harder to know, much less decide based on, which ones will last a long time. Especially since by the time we can confidently say "these last 5 years", you can't buy that model anymore. This is a problem with nearly anything more complex than a kitchen knife.
  - Illniyar 8y ago
    Good point.
  - AzMoo_ 8y ago
    I think you are underestimating kitchen knives tbh.
- ken 8y ago
  Because a smartphone is a conglomeration of billions of design decisions, and there's only a couple product choices today when it comes to smartphone ecosystems. If your answer is "market forces" for even 3 different attributes of the phone, then the market simply cannot support being able to control them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_Requisite_Variety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_R... The Invisible Hand worked great when you had 1000 people making hammers and sewing pants and harvesting wheat. It doesn't work so well when you've got 2 multi-national companies producing handheld supercomputers. Writing a regulation or law is how the market (i.e., the people collectively) tell an industry that it needs to do something, always. The industry can't just hide behind "I'm going to do things A and B that you hate, because I'm also doing things C, D, and E that you can't live without".
  - Illniyar 8y ago
    Android has dozens of manufacturers, each making changes to the underlying os (which is why upgrading takes so long). There are small manufacturers like the essential phone and that 50000$ phone that is supposed to be secure. While apple is definitely a monopoly in the ios market the phone market as a whole is definitely not an oligopoly
    - ken 8y ago
      Why do you say that? It sure looks like it to me. Samsung and Apple are the giants, with a couple others like LG/Motorola/Huawei making up almost all of the rest. Googling for "smartphone oligopoly" turns up a bunch of economics and investing webpages that use smartphones as their prime example. Is a $50,000 phone a realistic alternative to an iPhone? The whole point of this exercise is to get a phone that is well-supported for longer. Should I really believe that an Android name from a no-name brand is going to have better long-term support? On what would I base that? The "which is why upgrading takes so long" is a perfect example of an axis upon which consumers, via the market, have no control. If you want the latest version of Android, there's only 2 brands that offer it so far (Google and OnePlus), so you'd better agree with all of the other decisions that one of these two made.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  For a lot of people you don't just change phone. A phone nowadays was like buying a computer back then, it can be a huge investment
draw_down 8y ago
I'm also against heavy handed government except all the times when I'm not.