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> But on many systems these options do not exist because the vendor likes people dependent on them. Dependent is not exactly the right thing here. Lower suppo

> But on many systems these options do not exist because the vendor likes people dependent on them. Dependent is not exactly the right thing here. Lower support costs probably is. If a vendor gives out root access. If that root access can brick a machine. Then you will get a small percentage of very high touch broken things as returns. Customers like this are in the 'dangerous enough' but not 'good enough to do it correctly' stage of hacking. They will then not claim any responsibility for breaking it. As they are hoping you just fix it for free. I had one customer who would randomly change out stored procedures on our code. Then yell at our tech support for thing not working or being broken. Wasting hundreds of hours of time until we realized what he was doing. Locking him out is very appealing. Instead we sold him and his management on 'we will do the work for you for a fee'. Which was more along the lines of 'you do this again we will fire the customer'. That is but one small thing that can/will happen.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
That only explains why a company wouldn't want to provide free software support for software they didn't write. There are at least two alternatives to that. First, sell hardware the user can replace the software on, or that doesn't even come with software, and then don't provide software support at all. Second, provide software support and bill by the hour, in which case the customer messing up their stuff and calling your support is the opposite of a problem. You can even combine them if you want. Free support for the software that comes with it but if you replace the boot loader then support calls are billed hourly. There is no excuse for not allowing it -- it's leaving money on the table. Unless the reason is that locking the user out of the device has the purpose of monopolizing ancillary markets, which should be an antitrust violation.
dns_snek 2y ago
Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any warranty anyway, and realistically, how many people would tinker with root access as long as the device worked as intended? I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1 in 100. And if 1 in 20 brick the device in the process, that's 1 in 2000. According to [1] the average warranty claims rate for consumer electronics is 1 in 100. I doubt the difference in support load would even register on the scale. [1] https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20240711.html https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20240711.html
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  > Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any warranty anyway Exactly. We charged the guy for what he did. We gave him 'sa' access to the database and he tried to burn us. I think you may be assuming people act rationally? They do not. Most will but you will always get 'that guy' especially at scale. People will lie about what they have done. Or not even realize what they did goofed things up. In my example the guy was asking us to pay them back for defective software (millions of dollars). Right up until we proved he had broke it on purpose. I later found out he did it on purpose (confirmed by former coworkers of his 'he likes to mess with vendors'). He was not even alone. At least 3 other people tried that trick on us at different companies. Most service requests are 'easy'. Small tweak/reship and off you go. But someone who has really broken something can be as easy as 'ship them a new one' to weeks of trying to figure out why a device has suddenly started acting out of spec. That means at least 1-2 people working on something for a period of time. That costs money. > I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1 in 100. It is the time you have to put into looking into why did you end up with a defect that is not a defect. The margin on some of these IoT devices is in the couple of bucks range or smaller. You have to dedicate 2 guys for 3 months to figure out what went sideways can eat the entire profit margin of the whole run. I was just saying I can see why a company would withhold the info. I did not say I agree with it. Especially for things that are out of warrantee. I think companies are using it to basically have no support and basically leave what would be a decent customer hanging and hoping they can covert to another sale. There is no 'one reason' there is a list.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    That seem extremely frustrating. It does seem like there ought to be a reasonable split between personal software and business stuff. I mean you guys had a big contract, it is some negotiated thing between two peers, it could be reasonable to negotiate root in some subsystems, not in others. In the end you can’t really trust anything a system tells you if somebody has full root of it. It seems like you guys keeping control of the logging would be a reasonable give for them, if they expect support. (But why would you guys have planned around a downright adversarial customer? That guy is weird). Also, doesn’t this seem like… basically some kind of fraud? I wonder if your annoying user expected to be able to add the savings whatever he got back from the support contract to his “value to the company” somehow. For personal customers who are just buying smartphones, we don’t really have giant support contracts to screw around with.
error503 2y ago
It's an old anecdote, but years ago Samsung refused a warranty claim for a _failed USB port_ that would no longer charge the phone _because I had rooted it_ and the fuses were burnt. I think this was unreasonable of them, but it's not like I had any recourse. If vendors were really worried about this aspect, they would/could implement such draconian policies.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

That only explains why a company wouldn't want to provide free software support for software they didn't write. There are at least two alternatives to that. First, sell hardware the user can replace the software on, or that doesn't even come with software, and then don't provide software support at all. Second, provide software support and bill by the hour, in which case the customer messing up their stuff and calling your support is the opposite of a problem. You can even combine them if you want. Free support for the software that comes with it but if you replace the boot loader then support calls are billed hourly. There is no excuse for not allowing it -- it's leaving money on the table. Unless the reason is that locking the user out of the device has the purpose of monopolizing ancillary markets, which should be an antitrust violation.

dns_snek 2y ago

Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any warranty anyway, and realistically, how many people would tinker with root access as long as the device worked as intended? I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1 in 100. And if 1 in 20 brick the device in the process, that's 1 in 2000. According to [1] the average warranty claims rate for consumer electronics is 1 in 100. I doubt the difference in support load would even register on the scale. [1] https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20240711.html https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20240711.html

sumtechguy 2y ago
> Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any warranty anyway Exactly. We charged the guy for what he did. We gave him 'sa' access to the database and he tried to burn us. I think you may be assuming people act rationally? They do not. Most will but you will always get 'that guy' especially at scale. People will lie about what they have done. Or not even realize what they did goofed things up. In my example the guy was asking us to pay them back for defective software (millions of dollars). Right up until we proved he had broke it on purpose. I later found out he did it on purpose (confirmed by former coworkers of his 'he likes to mess with vendors'). He was not even alone. At least 3 other people tried that trick on us at different companies. Most service requests are 'easy'. Small tweak/reship and off you go. But someone who has really broken something can be as easy as 'ship them a new one' to weeks of trying to figure out why a device has suddenly started acting out of spec. That means at least 1-2 people working on something for a period of time. That costs money. > I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1 in 100. It is the time you have to put into looking into why did you end up with a defect that is not a defect. The margin on some of these IoT devices is in the couple of bucks range or smaller. You have to dedicate 2 guys for 3 months to figure out what went sideways can eat the entire profit margin of the whole run. I was just saying I can see why a company would withhold the info. I did not say I agree with it. Especially for things that are out of warrantee. I think companies are using it to basically have no support and basically leave what would be a decent customer hanging and hoping they can covert to another sale. There is no 'one reason' there is a list.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  That seem extremely frustrating. It does seem like there ought to be a reasonable split between personal software and business stuff. I mean you guys had a big contract, it is some negotiated thing between two peers, it could be reasonable to negotiate root in some subsystems, not in others. In the end you can’t really trust anything a system tells you if somebody has full root of it. It seems like you guys keeping control of the logging would be a reasonable give for them, if they expect support. (But why would you guys have planned around a downright adversarial customer? That guy is weird). Also, doesn’t this seem like… basically some kind of fraud? I wonder if your annoying user expected to be able to add the savings whatever he got back from the support contract to his “value to the company” somehow. For personal customers who are just buying smartphones, we don’t really have giant support contracts to screw around with.

error503 2y ago

It's an old anecdote, but years ago Samsung refused a warranty claim for a _failed USB port_ that would no longer charge the phone _because I had rooted it_ and the fuses were burnt. I think this was unreasonable of them, but it's not like I had any recourse. If vendors were really worried about this aspect, they would/could implement such draconian policies.