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> 'It's your device, ... Sadly, while that /should/ be true, I'm not sure that on any practical level it is anymore. There's about a 1000 ways the manufacturer

> 'It's your device, ... Sadly, while that /should/ be true, I'm not sure that on any practical level it is anymore. There's about a 1000 ways the manufacturer, carrier, os developer, etc., can make your device entirely useless without you having much of any recourse, because while they can't physically take the device from you, they can stop providing you service.

joshspankit 6y ago
This is exactly why “Right to repair” rose up to claw that ownership back. If we don’t create laws, at some point down the road we will go from “not much recourse” to literally none. What if Apple created a phone with no ports that was filled with epoxy as the last step in assembly? What if powering it on at all meant logging in to your apple account? They could in every meaningful way take that device away from you at the run of a single function.
- scientismer 6y ago
  If that would happen, and it bothers you, just don't buy an Apple phone. Problem solved.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    If that happens and there are no laws, it will affect more and more products. Don’t buy a laptop? A car? A building? A slab of wood? Yes, my examples are borderline unreasonable, but we’re already at the level of unreasonable products being licensed instead of owned (Tractors, DSLRs).
    - scientismer 6y ago
      Unless your country goes full socialism and there is only the government as provider for all those things, competing companies can provide you with repairable products. If people actually want them (which I doubt), why shouldn't companies provide them? With the tractors and DSLRs, again, if you don't like their licensing model, don't buy them. If nobody buys them, they will probably change their licensing model.
      - joshspankit 6y ago
        It's more complicated than that and is threatening to get even more complicated. Companies continue to grow larger than countries in both cash flow and influence.
        scientismer 6y ago
        That may be so, but you can still buy from the competition.
        joshspankit 6y ago
        I feel like you’re either missing critical information about how companies can make that impossible, or you know and you’re “doing a bit”. Let me say this outright: Sometimes the “competitors” are working together to maintain a monopoly.
        scientismer 6y ago
        If they do that, they open a door for another competitor. Of course it is all a bit more complicated. But by and large it works.

joshspankit 6y ago

This is exactly why “Right to repair” rose up to claw that ownership back. If we don’t create laws, at some point down the road we will go from “not much recourse” to literally none. What if Apple created a phone with no ports that was filled with epoxy as the last step in assembly? What if powering it on at all meant logging in to your apple account? They could in every meaningful way take that device away from you at the run of a single function.

scientismer 6y ago
If that would happen, and it bothers you, just don't buy an Apple phone. Problem solved.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  If that happens and there are no laws, it will affect more and more products. Don’t buy a laptop? A car? A building? A slab of wood? Yes, my examples are borderline unreasonable, but we’re already at the level of unreasonable products being licensed instead of owned (Tractors, DSLRs).
  - scientismer 6y ago
    Unless your country goes full socialism and there is only the government as provider for all those things, competing companies can provide you with repairable products. If people actually want them (which I doubt), why shouldn't companies provide them? With the tractors and DSLRs, again, if you don't like their licensing model, don't buy them. If nobody buys them, they will probably change their licensing model.
    - joshspankit 6y ago
      It's more complicated than that and is threatening to get even more complicated. Companies continue to grow larger than countries in both cash flow and influence.
      - scientismer 6y ago
        That may be so, but you can still buy from the competition.
        joshspankit 6y ago
        I feel like you’re either missing critical information about how companies can make that impossible, or you know and you’re “doing a bit”. Let me say this outright: Sometimes the “competitors” are working together to maintain a monopoly.
        scientismer 6y ago
        If they do that, they open a door for another competitor. Of course it is all a bit more complicated. But by and large it works.