could be interesting if there was a sort of tax on throwaway technology. something around a few principles: a) any manufacturer who ships an electronic device

could be interesting if there was a sort of tax on throwaway technology. something around a few principles: a) any manufacturer who ships an electronic device that fails to be operational for 10 years will pay a short term e-waste tax every year for every device that failed to remain operational. b) any device that talks to the internet will not be considered operational unless either it receives regular security updates and supporting backend services -or- if the manufacturer chooses to close the line of business all firmware and backend code must be released under an oss license so that end users may pick up the slack if they so choose. some additional guarantees around media licenses in the same vein would be pretty cool as well (although it seems that all the media companies are moving away from buying the right to consume on their service to just a regular fixed licensing fee for access to everything).