It should be a "right to not have product forced on you." When I buy a device, whether it is a car, a refrigerator, or an application, I want that thing that I saw in the store, as it exists on the store shelf, including the features and capabilities. I do not expect that I am going to maintain some kind of ongoing relationship with the manufacturer where they get to modify my device at their whim over the air.
Manufacturers should feel free to offer updates. If the user feels the tradeoffs make sense, then they should be free to accept updates. But this business where the manufacturer thinks they are somehow entitled to mess around with a product you've already purchased from them has got to end. It's not their product anymore, it's yours.
> It should be a "right to not have product forced on you."
Even better, a "right to modify everything you own, in any way you like". Don't you like the micro-controller installed by the manufacturer? Buy another one, with the correct firmware programmed from scratch, and swap it off.
We are already well into a new era of software, in which software can be programmed by itself, especially Rust. What is missing is money transactions for software companies and their employees located everywhere in the world.
"Devices with no surprises". Retail shops in conjuction with electronics engineers put new controllers in everything and re-sell it. Open source software, auditable by anyone and modified at will.
Programs for every car, every refrigerator etc cannot be programmed by a company located in one place, not even 10 places. It has to be a truly global company.
In other words, I want your device, I don't want your closed source software.
Are you willing to indemnify the manufacturer from any liability for anything that might go wrong on the car from then on? No factory warranty once you make changes. Potentially losing access to recall repairs because of the changes you made. In this age of software the entire car is increasingly designed holistically. The engineer might decide to use a particular grade of aluminum on a control arm knowing that the controller software is designed to never exceed certain limits.
> Are you willing to indemnify the manufacturer from any liability [..] No factory warranty once you make changes.
Car manufacturers have figured out how to make expensive cars with good materials and very safe as well. The problem is cheap cars, which can be much more defective and dangerous to drive.
There is a solution to that though. 10-50 people combining their buying power, getting an expensive car and time sharing their usage of it. A mix between public transportation, robo-taxi and personal ownership.
> The engineer might decide to use a particular grade of aluminum on a control arm [..]
That's a problem indeed, a 3d printer for example might be off by some millimeters in some dimension, the manufacturer accounts for that in software and it prints well afterwards. What kind of materials are used is important for sure, but the properties of metals used in the car can be made public, especially if the manufacturer is paid premium and just sold an expensive car instead of a cheap one.
The thing with software though, is that it can be infinitely extended and modified. I can have ten thousand programs more running in my computer tomorrow, with no change to anything physical. Physical stuff need to be manufactured, transported, warehoused, so there is always a limit.
Consumers want always more stuff, if 10 programs are available they want 10 programs. If 100 programs are available they want 100 programs. It never ends. Proprietary software is not ideal there.
Its the CFAA for you and me, but not for corporate thee.
Sony was the first mass application of "lol nope, we sold a feature we decided to remove. Too bad". If our government cared about citizenry, this should have been a criminal and civil case both, under computer fraud and abuse act. But no criminal anything was done, and users go what, $20, 10 years after the fact?
If I did this, I'd be rotting in a jailcell for 20 years.
Yeah, when Fall Creators Update came out for Windows 10, it crippled styluses down to an 11th touch input --- I very nearly returned my then-new Samsung Galaxy Book 12 --- rolled back, and stayed on the previous version for _years_.
Currently using a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- have to keep the Settings app in the Task bar so I can toggle stylus behaviour depending on which app I run, and use Firefox w/ a specific setting to enable text selection/disable stylus scrolling (scrolling w/ touch feels far more natural).
I'm about at the point where I'm going to make a Cyberdeck using an rPi 5 and Wacom Movink or Wacom One display....
There was an unreal lack of awareness when the Windows Ink team engaged Reddit on this issue -- talking about "legacy" apps when such apps included the latest release version of Photoshop.
I really wish Apple would go ahead and make a replacement for my Newton MessagePad....
As it is, rPi cyberdeck seems the best option --- waiting on a Soulcircuit Pilet from Kickstarter, and am considering swapping an rPi 5 into my Raspad v3 tablet shell for the nonce.
Problem with that is that if it's an online product then the manufacturer also _must_ provide updates to keep the device secure so that it continues to do whatever they sold you in the first place.
Also, adding features on its own is great, but obviously stuff like what happened here can't be allowed to happen, and those Samsung or LG smart fridges that became advertising boards is obviously also not acceptable...
Easy to call the bullshit out, hard to actually define the responsibilities of a manufacturer in a law.
The manufacturer must offer updates to keep the devices secure, but it should never be able to force those updates onto already-purchased devices. The choice should always be with the user.
I don't disagree, but if we end up in a situation where users are negatively affected because they chose not to update for fear of shit like this happening, that's not a great position either.
Manufacturers should feel free to offer updates. If the user feels the tradeoffs make sense, then they should be free to accept updates. But this business where the manufacturer thinks they are somehow entitled to mess around with a product you've already purchased from them has got to end. It's not their product anymore, it's yours.