5 ms·

I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison i

by vages 5y ago

I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it." Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then." (Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.) However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.

chrisseaton 5y ago
It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine. They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  It is also a little more subtle than you are describing. People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition. How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume? If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  No, it's not exactly like that. It's like selling a bottle of wine (marketed as such), that will purposefully self-destruct if you try to open it in a setting that the manufacturer does not approve of, say an orgy or a popular ball (as opposed to a bourgeois banquet). Technically, it's wine that's intended to be drunk. But the manufacturer enforces that you use it however they please, not you. So you paid money for the product. The product is technically capable to fulfill your greatest needs and desire as someone who purchased it, yet it has built-in mechanisms to enforce the will of someone else on your life. Would you find it normal to have screws sold with Ikea furniture that are made so that they can only screw Ikea furniture? Or gasoline sold with a BMW car that only works in BMW cars? Or bread sold with a butter that can only go on that kind of bread? It makes no sense, as interoperability is a fundamental property of most things around us, going against that is an insult and an injury to all of humanity, and to our planet that's ever more polluted because our overlords have decided we should keep on producing and throwing away hardware instead of repairing/re-purposing things as we used to not long ago.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > Would you find it normal to have... As long as that's how the product was described or agreed when I bought it, then I think that's moral. Kindles aren't sold with the feature of being able to remove the SIM and use it separately. If that's what you want... buy a different product.

by vages 5y ago

chrisseaton 5y ago

It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine. They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.

smorgusofborg 5y ago
It is also a little more subtle than you are describing. People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition. How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume? If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
southerntofu 5y ago
No, it's not exactly like that. It's like selling a bottle of wine (marketed as such), that will purposefully self-destruct if you try to open it in a setting that the manufacturer does not approve of, say an orgy or a popular ball (as opposed to a bourgeois banquet). Technically, it's wine that's intended to be drunk. But the manufacturer enforces that you use it however they please, not you. So you paid money for the product. The product is technically capable to fulfill your greatest needs and desire as someone who purchased it, yet it has built-in mechanisms to enforce the will of someone else on your life. Would you find it normal to have screws sold with Ikea furniture that are made so that they can only screw Ikea furniture? Or gasoline sold with a BMW car that only works in BMW cars? Or bread sold with a butter that can only go on that kind of bread? It makes no sense, as interoperability is a fundamental property of most things around us, going against that is an insult and an injury to all of humanity, and to our planet that's ever more polluted because our overlords have decided we should keep on producing and throwing away hardware instead of repairing/re-purposing things as we used to not long ago.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Would you find it normal to have... As long as that's how the product was described or agreed when I bought it, then I think that's moral. Kindles aren't sold with the feature of being able to remove the SIM and use it separately. If that's what you want... buy a different product.