3 ms·

Passing a law seems wildly unnecessary. The market is handling it just fine. People are pissed and buying competitors products instead. There is no shortage of

Passing a law seems wildly unnecessary. The market is handling it just fine. People are pissed and buying competitors products instead. There is no shortage of competition. I think you're crazy on mandating Xbox hardware to run arbitrary software. If you want to do that then just build a PC. Which is something you can do this instant. Demanding fewer options for consumers rather than more requires a spectacular argument which I don't think can be made here.

bigiain 12y ago
And passing laws about "kitty litter" just because today's ranting blog post is about kitty litter is a _spectacularly_ bad idea. The law shouldn't be about specific individual products, but about consumer rights and vendor obligations. I'd be happy to discuss a law requiring vendors to disclose at point-of-sale any measure taken in a product's design that artificially limits replacing consumables with 3rd party alternatives. Cat litter machines, ink jet printers, coffee makers, razors, cell phones, soda streams - if there's a reasonable assumption that you could buy kitty litter, ink, coffee beans, blades, airtime, or carbon dioxide gas - and _not_ have to buy those from one specific company who sell it at significantly above market rates, vendors should be required to clearly disclose that before the sale takes place. Laws should solve _classes_ of problems, not instances.
fryguy 12y ago
I think a better law would be requiring labeling saying that it is DRM protected and you can only use consumables from the manufacturer. It shouldn't cause any additional cost to the manufacturers. The only harm would be the lost sales from people who don't buy it because it has DRM, which is a good thing in my opinion. It's sort of like how the law that places have to list the calories on menus now, which is a good thing.

3 ms·

Passing a law seems wildly unnecessary. The market is handling it just fine. People are pissed and buying competitors products instead. There is no shortage of

by forrestthewoods 12y ago

bigiain 12y ago
And passing laws about "kitty litter" just because today's ranting blog post is about kitty litter is a _spectacularly_ bad idea. The law shouldn't be about specific individual products, but about consumer rights and vendor obligations. I'd be happy to discuss a law requiring vendors to disclose at point-of-sale any measure taken in a product's design that artificially limits replacing consumables with 3rd party alternatives. Cat litter machines, ink jet printers, coffee makers, razors, cell phones, soda streams - if there's a reasonable assumption that you could buy kitty litter, ink, coffee beans, blades, airtime, or carbon dioxide gas - and _not_ have to buy those from one specific company who sell it at significantly above market rates, vendors should be required to clearly disclose that before the sale takes place. Laws should solve _classes_ of problems, not instances.
fryguy 12y ago
I think a better law would be requiring labeling saying that it is DRM protected and you can only use consumables from the manufacturer. It shouldn't cause any additional cost to the manufacturers. The only harm would be the lost sales from people who don't buy it because it has DRM, which is a good thing in my opinion. It's sort of like how the law that places have to list the calories on menus now, which is a good thing.