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> From the patents it looks like I can thank inventors Mr. Krause and Mr. Chernov for their freedom sucking, major appliance disabling, communist, 1984-esque id
by carlyfan 6y ago
> From the patents it looks like I can thank inventors Mr. Krause and Mr. Chernov for their freedom sucking, major appliance disabling, communist, 1984-esque idea.
I know it’s just a figure of speech. But having DRM on a fucking fridge filter is the most capitalistic idea that I have ever seen. Communists don’t do this.
- bostik 6y agoI'm pretty sure the USSR would have loved to have technical enforcement mechanisms available so that the great unwashed masses could only use "domestic products" anywhere. Although, to be fair: a capitalist fears nothing more than a truly free market.
- Super_Jambo 6y ago'Free' markets are fine there are a multitude of ways to avoid competition without regulatory oversight. From lying about weights & measures to monopolies. What capitalists fear is a competitive or perfect market. But you'll never see anything close without strict policing of firms.
- bostik 6y agoThat is precisely it: for a hardcore capitalist the idea of having to compete only on price and quality is horrifying. If you can't have maintainable moats, rent-seeking environments, or bought regulators/lawmakers, what's the point?
- donw 6y agoTo be fair: communists didn't have refrigerators[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_goods_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_goods_in_the_Soviet_U...
- gattilorenz 6y agoTo be fair: this is not true. > in 1976, only two thirds of Soviet families had refrigerators https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-durable-goods/ https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-durable-goods/ Surely not as widespread as in the US, but your view of the USSR might not correspond to reality.
- aivisol 6y agoWell, they did have refrigerators, but they indeed were less widespread. I remember visiting relatives in my childhood and they didn't have a refrigerator sometime in late 1970s. Consumer goods were in short supply, that is true, and they actually never cought up with the West until the fall of the USSR. Not to mention personal cars, that was a real luxury.
- donw 6y agoI'm actually curious as to how much of that was the overall inefficiency of the Soviet system, and how much was simply due to the lack of industrialization that the Russians had to overcome. Something a lot of (North) Americans take for granted is that, after WWII, we had the only functioning manufacturing base in the world -- we were China before it was cool.
- dfox 6y agoFrom my childhood memories, appliances requiring payment to work is literally the first example of why capitalism is bad in somewhat propagandist children's book Dunno on the Moon.
- specialist 6y agoGreat tip, thanks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunno_on_the_Moon#Lunar_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunno_on_the_Moon#Lunar_capita... I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a teenager. Part of the techno-anarchy-libertarian (or whatever we call it) corpus for us nerds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress Now I want to read both, compare and contrast, against each other, and against the real world.
- knolax 6y agoWhy is this comment downvoted.
- kls 6y agoSadly, as much as, I too would like to pin every bad thing on communism, I have to agree with you. If anything the economic realities of communism created a mindset of creating things as simple and reliable as possible. The AK 47 probably being the prime example of this mentality and the Mig being another. DRM is a purely capitalistic endeavor and does show the dark side of unfettered capitalism.
- bildung 6y agoIndeed, in Eastern Germany most electronic devices even came with a complete circuit diagram to ease self repair.