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Why almost all companies make their systems difficult to customize and introperate with? Lately I've been fighting with things like iOS, Chromecast, "smart" li

Why almost all companies make their systems difficult to customize and introperate with? Lately I've been fighting with things like iOS, Chromecast, "smart" lightbulbs, vacuum robots and smartwatches and all of these go out of their way to lock these down and force their shitty and buggy and probably illegal spyware on me. I'm honestly asking why this is the default. What do the companies have to lose in people making their products suck less?

Fauntleroy 3y ago
It's unfortunately more profitable to make it this way, otherwise they wouldn't.
- sophacles 3y ago
  If they all interoped well, then IoT companies would have to compete on quality. A whole market segment would just disappear overnight.
account-5 3y ago
> Why almost all companies make their systems difficult to customize and introperate with? On purpose, or from incompetence.
Angostura 3y ago
What spyware does iOS force on you?
lost_tourist 3y ago
There is no incentive to interoperate as it will only cost them profits. Something like that has to be government mandated.
- jampekka 3y ago
  I get that they may not care to make nice documented APIs or follow standards, but they clearly use a lot of money to actively prevent you from even reverse engineering etc. I'd guess it's part just some knee-jerk business ideology and attempts at vendor lock-in and SaaS scams. Lock-in is clearly anticompetitive, and probably illegal, but law enforcement cares more about people smoking weed etc. The upcoming EU data act seems to try to tackle some of these. But I have very little hope it will amount to much. EU doesn't regulate business, business regulates EU.
deely3 3y ago
Its all about control. Easy to customize, easy to integrate means that you need to spend more time on these tasks and you can't just remove, change anything without thinking about influence of this change on customization and integration. Basically - customization and integration is a limiting factors and whats the point to have these limits when customization and integration is not your goal?

Fauntleroy 3y ago

It's unfortunately more profitable to make it this way, otherwise they wouldn't.

sophacles 3y ago
If they all interoped well, then IoT companies would have to compete on quality. A whole market segment would just disappear overnight.

account-5 3y ago

> Why almost all companies make their systems difficult to customize and introperate with? On purpose, or from incompetence.

Angostura 3y ago

What spyware does iOS force on you?

lost_tourist 3y ago

There is no incentive to interoperate as it will only cost them profits. Something like that has to be government mandated.

jampekka 3y ago
I get that they may not care to make nice documented APIs or follow standards, but they clearly use a lot of money to actively prevent you from even reverse engineering etc. I'd guess it's part just some knee-jerk business ideology and attempts at vendor lock-in and SaaS scams. Lock-in is clearly anticompetitive, and probably illegal, but law enforcement cares more about people smoking weed etc. The upcoming EU data act seems to try to tackle some of these. But I have very little hope it will amount to much. EU doesn't regulate business, business regulates EU.

deely3 3y ago

Its all about control. Easy to customize, easy to integrate means that you need to spend more time on these tasks and you can't just remove, change anything without thinking about influence of this change on customization and integration. Basically - customization and integration is a limiting factors and whats the point to have these limits when customization and integration is not your goal?