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Comment by rollcat | Hacker News Reader

I think we're going to need a law to regulate this at some point. I'm normally a fan of voting with your wallet, but it's getting increasingly impossible to find non-"smart" devices: TVs are the most common offender, but even Roomba's budget option comes with WiFi nowadays.

Right to Disconnect? I want my Right to Disconnect.

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What's the bet you stuck your nose up at your parents that wouldn't "just learn the new tech" when you were younger?

This has nothing to do with "kids these days", and everything to do with redefining ownership.

When these backhaul comms go in this hardware, that "purchase" doesn't convey ownership. I would describe it as a rental in ownership's clothing.

It's not about 'learn the new tech' - it's 'learn when the company decides you don't need a feature or just decides to no longer support it' and remotely disables

I fail to see the relevance

One is learning new tech, the other is loosing your rights

They’re the same thing seen from different perspectives.

You're over indexing.

s/learn/adapt

Primarily being Devil's advocate here, but where exactly was one granted the right to disconnect? All of these tools require you to accept a EULA to use them in the first place (to varying enforceability [1]), so you are opting in to their terms when you start using the device. If you want to opt out or disconnect, stop using it. Likewise, if they change terms, you have to be notified and can stop using it at that time. I don't think the system is great or fair, and it's definitely tipped in favor of the corporations, but the I also don't think it's fair to get mad at a refrigerator for working in a way you don't like after you made the informed decision to buy it. I don't want a wifi refrigerator, so I won't buy one, then I don't want to worry about what data it's collecting about me.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement#Enf...

Then your bet would've been lost. My father has been building custom alarm systems in the early 90s, before going fulltime IT. It was hard to get half a step ahead of him in tech news, even for a minute ;)

When exactly did this smart device thing turn bad? Maybe it's been bad all along? I refused to use a smartphone until 2014 or so. My first Android got Cyanogen within about a month. When I shopped for my first Roomba (recently RIP), I specifically avoided the WiFi models.

Nowadays the "smart" devices are almost unavoidable, so on my LAN, each one gets its own set of firewall rules (usually to block them from the Internet completely). If it can't work that way - it gets returned. I've also set up a host-based blocklist for ads/trackers, for the entire LAN.

It should not be this hard to protect your privacy, but the current trend is to make this impossible even for the power users. Right to Disconnect should be a thing.

I just don't see it happening though.

I imagine our leaders won't start thinking about this until we already have ubiquitous 5G / IoT .

I almost would say there is a better chance of a law that says you can't disconnect.

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