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I wonder what the reaction would be if similar post-sale downgrades happened in other industries? Imagine if a car company issued a critical safety recall, and

I wonder what the reaction would be if similar post-sale downgrades happened in other industries? Imagine if a car company issued a critical safety recall, and the fix cut the vehicle's MPG in half. Would the manufacturer be forced to buy back the vehicles? Issue partial refunds? Replace them with newer models that perform similar to how the original was meant to? (Not a perfect analogy I admit - opting out of a CPU security mitigation typically isn't going to risk anyone's life. At least not on most servers.)

mhh__ 5y ago
I have read (no proof but it was on a tech forum and seemed simple enough to be real) that Intel will refund at least some customers (The wording wasn't clear whether it was someone who bought a CPU or bought a HPC cluster...) if the CPU was sold to you as having a feature and its then disabled and you can show to them you used it.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Those conditions sound onerous for the customer to provide.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    Maybe, but if it was the same with FDIV from what I saw. The bug was bad but actually bumping into it was quite rare.
    - myself248 5y ago
      Didn't that backfire? Having to prove that you used FDIV, and that errors in the fourth-or-beyond decimal place would actually affect you, was such bad press for Intel, that they eventually offered replacements to anyone upon request. As Wikipedia tells it: > Intel's response to the FDIV bug has been cited as a case of the public relations impact of a problem eclipsing the practical impact of said problem on customers. While most users were unlikely to encounter the flaw in their day-to-day computing, the company's initial reaction to not replace chips unless customers could guarantee they were affected caused pushback from a vocal minority of industry experts. The subsequent publicity generated shook consumer confidence in the CPUs, and led to a demand for action even from people unlikely to be affected by the issue. Andrew Grove, Intel's CEO at the time was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying "I think the kernel of the issue we missed [...] was that we presumed to tell somebody what they should or shouldn't worry about, or should or shouldn't do".
slavboj 5y ago
That literally happened with the VW turbodiesels.
- jhenkens 5y ago
  First thing I thought of. I believe the trade off was getting a warranty extension on the engine/emmissions system.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    In some US states VW was forced to buy the vehicles back from owners if they wanted to sell them. I know most people jumped on the offer as VW had to pay a certain pre-agreed price and it was higher than market value.
    - pests 5y ago
      They could either fix it (adding a diesel exhaust filter, which adds a consumable filter fluid to the maintenance schedule) or buy it back at the price the vehicle was valued at before the scandal broke. Plus $5,000 in restitution regardless of option taken.
- donalhunt 5y ago
  * in some markets. :(
- schmichael 5y ago
  And the repercussions were substantial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal (I'm not arguing equivalence between these two "post-consumer downgrades" -- just pointing out there's not only prior art for it occurring, but also prior art for repercussions/compensation.)
- monocasa 5y ago
  And they were subject to a $15B class action settlement because of it in the US alone. https://www.classaction.com/volkswagen/settlement/ https://www.classaction.com/volkswagen/settlement/

mhh__ 5y ago

I have read (no proof but it was on a tech forum and seemed simple enough to be real) that Intel will refund at least some customers (The wording wasn't clear whether it was someone who bought a CPU or bought a HPC cluster...) if the CPU was sold to you as having a feature and its then disabled and you can show to them you used it.

r00fus 5y ago
Those conditions sound onerous for the customer to provide.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Maybe, but if it was the same with FDIV from what I saw. The bug was bad but actually bumping into it was quite rare.
  - myself248 5y ago
    Didn't that backfire? Having to prove that you used FDIV, and that errors in the fourth-or-beyond decimal place would actually affect you, was such bad press for Intel, that they eventually offered replacements to anyone upon request. As Wikipedia tells it: > Intel's response to the FDIV bug has been cited as a case of the public relations impact of a problem eclipsing the practical impact of said problem on customers. While most users were unlikely to encounter the flaw in their day-to-day computing, the company's initial reaction to not replace chips unless customers could guarantee they were affected caused pushback from a vocal minority of industry experts. The subsequent publicity generated shook consumer confidence in the CPUs, and led to a demand for action even from people unlikely to be affected by the issue. Andrew Grove, Intel's CEO at the time was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying "I think the kernel of the issue we missed [...] was that we presumed to tell somebody what they should or shouldn't worry about, or should or shouldn't do".

slavboj 5y ago

That literally happened with the VW turbodiesels.

jhenkens 5y ago
First thing I thought of. I believe the trade off was getting a warranty extension on the engine/emmissions system.
- gambiting 5y ago
  In some US states VW was forced to buy the vehicles back from owners if they wanted to sell them. I know most people jumped on the offer as VW had to pay a certain pre-agreed price and it was higher than market value.
  - pests 5y ago
    They could either fix it (adding a diesel exhaust filter, which adds a consumable filter fluid to the maintenance schedule) or buy it back at the price the vehicle was valued at before the scandal broke. Plus $5,000 in restitution regardless of option taken.
donalhunt 5y ago
* in some markets. :(
schmichael 5y ago
And the repercussions were substantial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal (I'm not arguing equivalence between these two "post-consumer downgrades" -- just pointing out there's not only prior art for it occurring, but also prior art for repercussions/compensation.)
monocasa 5y ago
And they were subject to a $15B class action settlement because of it in the US alone. https://www.classaction.com/volkswagen/settlement/ https://www.classaction.com/volkswagen/settlement/