[HN Gopher] Opening this article voids warranty
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Opening this article voids warranty
Author : raybb
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-11-09 15:50 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (magazine.scienceforthepeople.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (magazine.scienceforthepeople.org)
| Havoc wrote:
| Reminds me of this bash.org
|
| <DmncAtrny> I will write on a huge cement block "BY ACCEPTING
| THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO
| MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS
| DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR
| INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK
| INTO YOUR BUILDING."
|
| <DmncAtrny> And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
|
| <DmncAtrny> and run like hell
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't think this needs to be limited to Sony
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Might have been especially relevant to Sony's rootkit
| scandal, where playing a CD in your computer will prompt a
| EULA that then installs software (notably unmentioned in the
| EULA) that prevents you from burning a copies of that CD,
| plus "phone's home" with IP address and what music is being
| played.
|
| Luckily nowadays users just install Spotify, no need to
| bother with rootkits.
| teawrecks wrote:
| I wonder why the music industry seems to be ok with 1 music
| streaming service having all the content, but for movies
| and tv we need dozens of different streaming services, each
| with their own content so everyone gets the cut they want.
|
| I think it's because the movie/tv industries are unionized
| and everyone has to get paid, so they have to get more from
| the customer side. Whereas in the music industry, we're ok
| with musicians being "starving artists", so the labels can
| just pay the artists less.
| danielheath wrote:
| Spotify regularly remove songs from playlists I have made
| after they lose the rights.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| This is one area where music has got it right, imo.
|
| The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is
| higher than a plurality of services each with only a
| little. In other words I'd happily pay more per month for
| the Spotify of TV, movies, and sports that I currently do
| for a sampling of the usual streaming services.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But yet people do not think that one place to get all of
| your apps for a device is okay. Which is it? One place to
| rule them all, or free for all?
| thereisnospork wrote:
| False equivalency: Apps/programs are a la carte, TV /
| Music services are not. Accessing a secondary app
| 'store', e.g. EPIC to buy a game that is not on steam
| costs next to nothing, just a small time investment.
| Accessing a movie that isn't on Netflix is a pain in the
| ass and money.
|
| Frankly if I was king of the world any and all licensing
| deals for media would have to be explicitly non-
| exclusive, effectively decoupling production from
| distribution. Any service should be able to stream/rent
| any media for the same rate as any other. This would let
| the market sort out what people value in terms of
| streaming 'packages'.
| wiml wrote:
| I suspect it's because music (at least in the US) has a
| "mandatory licensing regime" for music, which is why it's
| possible for broadcast radio stations to play a wide
| variety of music. I don't think there's a corresponding
| legal framework for videorecordings, so each video
| broadcaster/streamer needs to negotiate independently
| with each rightsholder.
| dylan604 wrote:
| right, but that's no longer relevant (kind of like Sony
| themselves), so it shouldn't be limited to.
|
| s/Sony/$sourceOfCurrentIre/
|
| The brick containing EULA should be universally accepted.
| jaclaz wrote:
| There is also the (missing) requirement to make things easily
| repairable, I wouldn't mind at all to replace a "subsystem" if it
| was easily swappable and costed a fair amount _and_ the old one
| was refurbished.
|
| Many years ago there was an Italian maker of (at the time CRT's)
| TV's which was considered on one side "cheap" but on the other
| "simple/indestructible" called MIVAR.
|
| Their TV's AFAICR were essentially made of 6 or 8 electronic
| cards/PCB's on a sort of backplane of connectors.
|
| You brought the (not working) TV to the (approved) repairman, he
| would open the back of the TV, identify which card had issues,
| and replace it in like 5-10 minutes, for a fixed price (depending
| on which card had to be replaced).
|
| Then the cards were sent to the factory where they had a
| laboratory to diagnose the issue and replace just the
| component(s) that failed, and these refurbished cards were sent
| back to the repair shops.
| mcguire wrote:
| There are similar systems today.
|
| I have a 2004 Corvette. When I got it several years ago, it had
| (like many others of its ilk) a failed ABS/traction controller.
| Removing it was slightly complicated by the fact that it had
| servos connected to the hydraulic braking system, but wasn't
| difficult. And fortunately, at least at the time, there were a
| couple small companies in the business of refurbishing brake
| controllers. The refurbished controller has been working
| perfectly ever since.
|
| Not cheap, but very significantly cheaper than a new unit.
| wackget wrote:
| This is a great article, however I feel a bit like it's shouting
| into an echo chamber.
|
| Many people in sci/tech industries are already aware of the
| importance of repairability and right to repair controversies.
|
| For an article like this to actually make a difference to the
| entire population, it needs to be written and published somewhere
| the general public will see it.
|
| It also needs to be dumbed down and put into terms the average
| person will understand: lose the "robotic arm" example and start
| talking about how that shiny $2000 exercise bike that you just
| bought for your wife will someday, inevitably, become an
| expensive ornament because Peloton's servers have shut down and
| the hardware/software can't be modified.
|
| Until the average person cares about repairability, longevity,
| and hardware ownership, it just won't take hold. In my opinion.
| djoldman wrote:
| Regarding John Deere tractors: does anyone have insight as to why
| a competitor with more lenient repair rules hasn't shown up to
| save all the farmers?
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| There are easy to repair competitors like kubota. It is just JD
| still has a lot of name recognition and "Buy American" and all
| that.
| pchristensen wrote:
| I don't remember the details, but this podcast goes into pretty
| significant depth -
| https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/business-breakdowns/joh...
|
| Lots of moats - financial, reputational, generational,
| technological, branding, performance, distribution, etc.
| COGlory wrote:
| Probably because most farm equipment is a multi generational
| purchase
| mcguire wrote:
| A new company? Two words: capital intensity.
|
| Production of industrial machinery like farm equipment requires
| massive factory infrastructure with significant supply chains.
| Getting the capital together for that is hard enough, but then
| the new company would be competing against the established John
| Deere, with the added (perceived, if nothing else) handicap of
| lenient repair rules.
|
| An existing competitor to John Deere? I suspect it is for the
| same reason that sedans are essentially indistinguishable,
| style-wise: operating in the same environment (aerodynamics,
| interior volume and shape, etc. on one hand, the legal and
| cultural background on the other), they have all struck on the
| same optimizations, which include repair restrictions.
|
| Now, if one does decide to try the alternative, _and_ makes
| significantly more profit, you 'll see a fairly rapid state
| change as most of them switch.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _A community that sees no value to repair is a community that
| cannot..._ "
|
| ...be resilient in the face of unpleasant events. Past a certain
| point, optimization is the enemy of resilience, and for
| optimization for the producer's profit, that point is not very
| far along.
|
| This is corollary to the fundamental dictum, "Life is hard. Life
| is harder if you are stupid."
| [deleted]
| speeder wrote:
| Heh, I saw this AFTER I posted this link:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29164111
|
| Basically John Deere made their tractors impossible to repair
| without official parts, and we have now a harvest season +
| inflation, thus John Deere employees now hold all the cards, if
| they stop working people will literally starve without tractors
| to do the harvest, since repairing the tractors without their
| help is now impossible, thus they are strinking.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If it's okay for John Deere to do this, then why do people get
| arrested for scalping toilet paper?
| mcguire wrote:
| _Do_ people get arrested for scalping toilet paper?
| josephcsible wrote:
| Yes. https://www.wxyz.com/news/person-caught-selling-cases-
| of-toi... https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus
| /8-people-a...
| bialpio wrote:
| Channeling my inner cynic: because government only tolerates
| scalpers that are publicly traded on the stock market.
| blowski wrote:
| To be even more cynical, they only tolerate scalpers if
| they personally stand to profit from the scalping.
| klipt wrote:
| Because politicians get more good PR from quick hacks on the
| current hot button issue, than they would from crafting good,
| general policy.
| 0des wrote:
| People get arrested, not corporations.
| Aachen wrote:
| So if you provide a service you get to dictate a lot more
| about it than if you try to make use of someone else's
| sevice? That's the difference in this context between an
| evil corp and a humble poor soul, if I'm not mistaken.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Because twenty years and change ago we decided it should be
| illegal to crack software. Except we didn't say that, we said
| that any code that controls access to a copyrighted work has
| special legal protection. Specifically...
|
| 1. You can't legally break such code, unless it's for a
| handful of statutorily or administratively selected purposes
|
| 2. You can't legally tell people how to break such code for
| _any_ purpose
|
| This provision is part of the DMCA, section 1201. It was
| policy-laundered through the WTO into US law against the
| objection of the tech community, so basically every country
| has the same rules.
|
| The problem with this law is that it's scope _dramatically_
| extends past it 's intent - hell, half the original law is
| just exceptions intended to control the extremely broad scope
| of "no breaking digital locks". What people realized was that
| they could put DRM on _anything_ , regardless of if copyright
| actually protected it or not, and it would still have the
| same effect because DMCA 1201 has horrific chilling effects.
| Even if SCOTUS says you can't use DMCA 1201 to protect, say,
| printer cartridge DRM; that decision still took 10 years and
| millions of dollars in legal fees to reach. No company wants
| to spend that amount of time and money just to gain access to
| repair aftermarkets.
|
| On the other hand, the law regarding price gouging is very
| old and well-established; because it's a very long-running
| problem. Serial-locked parts were basically unheard of
| outside of videogame consoles up until this decade. The
| assumption with DMCA 1201 was that it was going to keep
| people from copying DVDs, not from repairing tractors. It's
| one of the few cases in which the law _actually_ needs to
| catch up to technology (as opposed to someone trying to get
| away with something and parroting a thought-terminating
| cliche).
| quantified wrote:
| For a very unusual definition of "we" that is ordinarily
| spelt "they".
| elliekelly wrote:
| Because all people are equal but some legal "persons" are
| more equal.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| > If it's okay for John Deere to do this, then why do people
| get arrested for scalping toilet paper?
|
| ... Federalism?
|
| Most of the time it's not illegal to scalp toilet paper.
| There are select cities and states, with interventionist city
| councils and legislatures; when citizens saw inflated prices,
| these bodies decided that they would enact bans on scalping,
| in a manner which usually focus on consumer goods.
|
| Note that economists suggest that scalping is a natural part
| of supply and demand and helps reduce shortages by
| incentivizing traders to move in supply from elsewhere (and
| scalping bans are sometimes deliberately weaponized against
| immigrant-owned small businesses because of course they are
| why did you doubt for a moment? Even NYC rolled that back
| somewhat and offered refunds on the fines they levied on
| bodegas.) But while the theoretical efficiency may or may not
| actually be realized in the aftermath of a disaster, it is of
| course _entirely_ irrelevant to the legal monopoly on tractor
| repair services, which certainly have no such excuse. This
| just makes it all worse, of course.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > John Deere employees now hold all the cards, if they stop
| working people will literally starve without tractors to do the
| harvest
|
| or, you know, maybe John Deere owners/execs have the power?
| maybe if they paid their employees a living wage employees
| wouldn't need to go on strike?
| speeder wrote:
| What I mean is: if they DIDN'T had DRM they could ignore the
| strike more easily, but they DRM made sure a lot of people
| will have serious issues if they don't raise wages, thus the
| DRM shifted power from execs hands to the employees.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I am curious if they are actually getting less than a living
| wage.
|
| Quick googling suggests that they were making $20-$30 per
| hour before the strike. Another quick Google suggests that
| the average assembly line hourly rate is $19/hr (another
| source says only $14/hr).
|
| It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as
| livability, but it is understandably infuriating to see the
| company as a whole making tremendous profits while only
| paying slightly above average.
|
| Is that pretty much the situation or did I miss something?
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I live near one of their facilities on strike, though don't
| know any direct John Deere employees closely. From
| discussions I've read, a major component of the frustration
| is forced overtime.
|
| I imagine John Deere probably ran similar to a company I
| used to work for. The order book was full, there was money
| to be made. 9-10 hour days Monday-Friday. Most Saturdays
| was mandatory overtime. The only way to guarantee you can
| do something over the weekend with your family is by taking
| PTO on Friday, which would get you out of overtime on
| Saturday.
|
| Pair in that the last couple negotiations have been during
| downturns in farming, it's pretty reasonable that they're
| trying to make up ground after taking concessionary
| contracts.
| throwaway55421 wrote:
| "Living wage" is essentially complete bollocks. It has no
| well defined meaning, that is to say - it has no meaning
| with anything approaching large scale agreement.
|
| A living wage to a migrant might have been one that allows
| them a bed in an 8-bunk dorm, a bus ticket, and thirty quid
| a week for food.
|
| A living wage to most of HN is probably enough to get a
| mortgage.
|
| To me the concept is essentially nonsensical - if you're in
| the proletarian class then you're not living at all.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as
| livability
|
| i appreciate the data, though 1.) this is America - so
| workers have to deal with a lack of basic social services
| like in Europe, 2.) from my understanding the concessions
| made by John Deere were pitiful so far. an account from
| someone on the ground:
| https://twitter.com/JonahFurman/status/1456457606583758871
|
| > but it is understandably infuriating to see the company
| as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying
| slightly above average.
|
| yes exactly, that's the superior argument here.
|
| although the best argument is the one about climate change,
| and how viable solutions are not profitable enough to
| capitalism in the short term. we need open source, modular
| tech like the Science for the People article argues.
|
| _" The current political economy is based on a false idea
| of "immaterial scarcity." It believes that an exaggerated
| set of intellectual property monopolies - for [trade
| secrets], copyrights, trademarks and patents - should
| restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic
| innovations. Hence the system discourages human
| cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from
| innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity.
| In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy
| keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind
| private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate
| adequate profits."_
|
| http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/peer-peer-economy-and-
| ne...
| no_wizard wrote:
| You always run the risk of John Deere just transitioning
| manufacturing to elsewhere, unless there are some sort of
| incentives at play here that prevent that, no?
|
| Not saying I don't support the strike, or what the strike is
| trying to achieve, just trying to understand the nuance of
| whats going on here.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Long term, sure, but this isn't a long term situation. Can't
| move overseas before the harvest.
|
| Besides, what kind of company looks at the supply chain
| situation right now and says "yea, now is a good time to move
| all of our business-critical infrastructure overseas."
|
| And all that sets aside operational & regulatory challenges
| moving heavy manufacturing overseas.
|
| It's pretty safe to assume that, after 30+ years of
| offshoring, old companies who haven't yet offshored have good
| reason not to do so.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| For anyone else unfamiliar with the terms, the Global
| North/Global South are monikers used to describe the
| socioeconomic divides between countries. The North is
| European/American economies plus Russia, Australia, Israel,
| Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan; the South
| is Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East,
| India/China, and Southeast Asia.
|
| c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South
| ehnto wrote:
| Thank you for that clarification, it confused me and seemed a
| little ignorant at first glance. It would seem north and south
| geographically have nothing to do with the term.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| It does have something to do with geography, but it is
| imprecise. The same way 'western' is imprecise, because it
| always includes Australia and New Zealand. And 'first world'
| is imprecise, because of it has roots in the cold war, thus
| should not include countries like Switzerland.
| switchbak wrote:
| To be more accurate, when you say the Global North includes
| "American" economies, that means specifically the USA and
| Canada, and not Mexico. That's different from 'American', and
| even 'North American'.
| go_blue_13 wrote:
| inb4 all the Apple dick riders come in talking about how its
| actually a good thing you can't repair your own stuff, and if you
| don't like it you should just buy another brand
| quantified wrote:
| Can't wait until medical providers deliver your baby with a
| contract that says only they have the right to deliver care in
| the future.
| masswerk wrote:
| What about a mandatory publication of repair & maintenance
| manuals, starting at a certain amount of goods delivered? This
| may at least heighten awareness, even to the point of becoming a
| quality indicator again.
| Tepix wrote:
| The role of repair is embossed into bluewater cruisers who spend
| a lot of time at sea. Things break all the time and the way to
| succeed regardless is by having lots of spare parts, tools,
| knowledge, a supportive community and by practicing preventive
| maintenance.
|
| The rise of the throwaway product is a rather recent phenomenon.
| Our grandparents repaired everything. It's the only sustainable
| approach.
| handrous wrote:
| Repair culture happens when stuff's expensive and labor's
| cheap. Both are false and getting, uh, falser.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Well, sure, if it is an organic economic/social phenomenon
| and the natural result of development of a society and
| economy, fine. But if the rise of throwaway culture were
| entirely organic we wouldn't have attempts to ban repair and
| planned obsolescence.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > The rise of the throwaway product is a rather recent
| phenomenon. Our grandparents repaired everything. It's the only
| sustainable approach.
|
| How do you change that, though? Our grandparents repaired
| things because they were _expensive_. In the 50s, a washer &
| dryer cost $500. In today's money that would be over $5000. And
| income has gone up even more. Purely in economic terms it has
| become considerably less appealing to fix a broken appliance.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Our grand parents also didn't have everything made of flimsy
| plastic and highly integrated electronics. Their washer
| likely consisted of a gearbox and motor with a switch or two.
|
| My previous washer was about 30 years old when the tub
| finally rusted out at the support. It would have been 25
| years had I not pathched it twice with water resistant epoxy
| when it first sprang a leak. It had a simple mechanical timer
| knob that handled the sequencing and timing of cycles. Couple
| of other knobs set the water temp, spin/wash speed, and
| optional rinse. It was dumb as a brick and cleaned my
| clothes.
|
| Now my $1200 LG washer has WiFi (I NEVER connected it on
| purpose), beats the shit out of everything you put inside,
| and heavily soiled items come out stained and half clean. I
| emailed LG asking if they offered you access to their dumb
| cloud API and the answer is No unless your are a partner
| company. I hope this thing does not break down in the next 10
| years but I doubt that.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Now my $1200 LG washer has WiFi (I NEVER connected it on
| purpose)
|
| I think some appliances (TVs, perhaps?) have been caught
| connecting to any open AP they can find, even if you don't
| give it credentials to your network.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > Our grandparents repaired everything
|
| I think our grandparents had just as many disposable things as
| we do, just not nearly as expensive. I think the idea of
| disposable products basically began with the industrial
| revolution, when mass production became easy, if not
| necessarily "cheap" yet
| aspenmayer wrote:
| It started with disposable razor blades, right around the
| turn of the century iirc
| Underphil wrote:
| It's a vicious cycle. As things become less repairable (due to
| complexity or forced obsolescence) new generations will lose the
| ability to figure things out and effect a repair. I presume
| that's what these companies want.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I wonder if some manufacturers are succumbing to copyrightism, a
| tag for the mental disorder that obsesses with control over the
| product - to the detriment of all else.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > copyrightism
|
| i've not heard of this. is it the same as critiquing the
| intellectual property system as a whole? if not, how is it
| different?
| knodi123 wrote:
| > is it the same as critiquing the intellectual property
| system as a whole?
|
| Sounds like it's more concerned with the opposite, human side
| - the madness that grips people who have some control and are
| terrified of losing it, so they use copyright (and lobbying
| for copyright enhancements and extensions) to keep themselves
| from ever having to relinquish anything they can't get back.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| This is an outstanding article that invites all of us in
| technology to question some of the foundations our current world
| is built upon: ownership of intellectual property; rapid
| obsolescence; indeed, monopoly capitalism itself.
|
| The readers of HN would do well to think long and carefully about
| the ideas herein. The fate of our world may depend upon it.
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