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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

What is increasingly scaring me: This time, the vendor was "nice" enough to only force you into viewing a subscription offer. However, there is really nothing technical that would keep them from forcing you to take the subscription if you want to continue using your device.

Vendors have enough control about locked-down devices that they could play ransomware and make arbitrary demands to their users without many problems. And "device" can be anything from phones to cars to smart homes or expensive specialized equipment.

I'm not sure how the legal situation is currently, but since the Stallman strategy of keeping devices free has evidently failed, I think it's high time for a comprehensive set of "digital consumer rights" that limit what vendors can do on "their" devices.

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Yeah, sure, technically any vendor can push updates to brick your device, but that doesn’t happen because of the law. This stuff often gets through because it’s small enough, gray enough, and done by smaller companies. Have Apple pull something like this and you’ll see on the NYT.

Not quite the same, but there was a story yesterday about Apple doing this with a "Try the new Safari" notification. I think this falls under your "gray enough" category, but it is interesting they violated their own design guidelines.

Apple discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252412228

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28361730

> and you’ll see on the NYT.

And then what? It might generate a bit of outrage, but at the end of the day, users have no leverage (without legal support).

No one wants to lose their device or the data on it, so for individual users, there are not a lot of options apart from doing whatever the vendor wants

Then it depends, maybe 4 years later it will be discussed by the EU and Apple will be forced to pay 1% of what the change brought them. /s

> but that doesn’t happen

Doesn't happen yet. Entire industries are trying to bypass basic property law so you "own" your purchases in name only and the manufacturer has control de facto. The video game industry has been saying "buy or product" when they really mean "subscribe to our service"[1] for a long time. Bricking old multiplayer gamed had been common practice for years, and now some singleplayer games have been unnecessarily bricked when the publisher e.g. shut down the DRM server.

Companies like John Deere have been extending this strategy into their hardware for a while. The damage doesn't even have to be "bricking your device"; HN regularly features stories about forced updates that remove paid-for features.

> Have Apple pull something like this and you’ll see on the NYT.

Apple got close when their devices suddenly stopped running 3rd party software in the recent "OCSP Apocalypse".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

I didn't follow it super closely but if I recall right Nest bought a competing brand of smart home devices (Revolv). They kept it around for a year or two and then in 2016 turned off the servers that mediated between the phone app and the device, bricking the devices.

>only force you into viewing a subscription offer

Nothing only about it, considering any offer is like requesting a quote for my time. It's a task I must assess. I never feel bad about using adblocker or coupons to excess because gaining the opportunity to form my habits is something I charge for.

In this case I am thinking about entering the display advertising business and declaring their overlay ads as anti-competitive computer hacking and vandalism on my equipment.

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