this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
46 points (88.3% liked)
sh.itjust.works Main Community
7648 readers
125 users here now
Home of the sh.itjust.works instance.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There's a lot of BS in there, but here's my takeaway:
For example, if I want to make an arcade cabinet, I need to get permission from all of the rights holders of each game, even if those games aren't available for sale today. If copyright expired after a reasonable time (say, 5-10 years), I could make competitive products.
Another example is that if I buy a movie, I cannot legally buy tools to break the encryption to make a backup. So if my disk breaks, I'm SOL and need to buy another. So I do not truly own the thing I bought.
Or for the example of cars, if I buy a car today that has hardware for heating my seats, I cannot use those seat warmers unless I pay to unlock them. I cannot do that because the company owns the IP for the system to enable it and I have to pay to access that closed system. If they didn't have such strong protections, I could buy cracked software to break whatever stupid encryption they have.
And so on. I think the comparison with feudalism is silly (this is different, though if you squint it's related), but I see that as largely SEO and rage-baiting.
The real argument is useful, and here's my takeaway:
Cars are absolutely user-serviceable. I do pretty much all of my own maintenance, and I'm not all that mechanically inclined, I just watch YouTube videos and follow along. All you need is a set of wrenches and screwdrivers and you can do most regular repairs.
It's a lot easier imo to do most car repairs than replace a phone screen imo. With a screen repair, you need finesse with a heat gun and be careful with ribbon cables.
The problem with modern cars and phones though isn't the Inherent complexity, but the artificial complexity from vendors locking things down. As in, they pair components cryptographically and it's illegal to distribute tools for profit that break that encryption. If they provided the tools to pair components, it wouldn't be an issue, but they hide behind IP and DMCA protections, which essentially locks you into their service.
That's kind of what the article was getting at imo. Vendors are finding new ways to lock you in instead of retaining you with a better product. So companies are trying to get the benefits of being a monopoly through technical and legal means.