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If a HW company is shutting down due to financial difficulties, the fact they previously paid to get a "license" to make smart devices won't be any incentive fo

If a HW company is shutting down due to financial difficulties, the fact they previously paid to get a "license" to make smart devices won't be any incentive for them to continue operating. How does this help the situation other than to further raise the barrier of starting HW companies?

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
It’s a failure fund, it pays for a skeleton team or third party contractor or whatever to keep the lights on. It’s intended to be actual insurance, where you pay the premiums forever based on some assessed cost of maintaining your products for 5 years (or pick your timeframe) or refunding your users, whichever is cheaper. Making hardware companies even harder definitely isn’t great but I don’t see how else to deal with the fact that if I buy a toaster that connects to your toaster cloud and my toaster stops working when you go out of business- I am out one smart toaster that you sold me. Best case scenario I have a regular toaster and worst case I have a brick. I’m not asking if that’s legal, mind you. I’m asking if that’s fair, if a reasonable person would call that fair? While the company itself is fully aware of the risk that it might not exist tomorrow, it’s customers typically aren’t.