Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

No I don't think I agree.

To use a different example someone brought up - imagine your CPU breaks in your laptop. You send it to the manufacturer, and they replace it with a higher model CPU because <reasons> - cool, right? You sell it advertised with that better CPU, then the next owner has to send it in for another, completely unrelated repair, and the manufacturer then says "oh we noticed the last repair fitted more powerful CPU than intended, so we removed it and fitted the original spec CPU".

That wouldn't be just immoral, that would be actual theft.

The matter of fact is, after the warranty repair the guy was given a car with a bigger battery and the bigger capacity enabled in software. Whether Tesla intended to do this or not, is completely and utterly irrelevant - it was his to keep and sell. Now Tesla taking this away should be(but probably isn't) illegal. You have a product with a feature X, Tesla removed that feature and in fact holds it ransom for payment - the fact that they never intended to install it is irrelevant.

To use a different example again - imagine you buy a new car and the factory made a mistake and fitted an extra option that you didn't order. Is the manufacturer in the right to remove that part during your next service?

I think there is a difference with Tesla though, because they do segment based on software. So some of their actual 60 level cars are sold with 90 batteries limited in software.

This is more akin motherboard manufacturers who would unofficially unlock overclocking on unsupported chipsets in first version firmware. If someone bought such a board, overclocked the CPU, sold it, and then the next owner sent the board back to the manufacturer for unrelated repairs, and as part of fixing the other problem the board manufacturer needed to do a BIOS update, resulting in the overclocking feature being lost.

The segmentation being purely in software makes no difference in the principal. Software segmentation merely makes the effects technically achievable (whereas it'd be hard or impossible via physical means).

But the principle that a consumer's product shouldn't be modified without asking for explicit permission from the owner still stands regardless of segmentation methods.

> the factory made a mistake and fitted an extra option that you didn't order. Is the manufacturer in the right to remove that part during your next service?

Your bank makes a mistake and adds a million dollars to your account balance when you tried to deposit $100. Is the bank in the right to remove that when they discover the mistake?

Yes, because it's their account and their system - that does happen in fact, plenty of stories like that. If you take the money out, or move it elsewhere, they cannot just break into your house and take the cash however - they would need a court order to recover it, and the court would need to agree that it was a reasonable mistake(and that's not always the case! plenty of cases where people/companies send money to the wrong account by mistake and the courts rule that you can't force the other side to return the money)

Also you haven't answered my question, which I think compares better to this situation than a random million dollars deposited into my account. No one randomly gave this guy an upgrade - it was a warranty replacement with a better item, that happens literally all the time in all kinds of industries. What doesn't happen is the manufacturer turning around few years later and taking the item back.

> If you take the money out, or move it elsewhere, they cannot just break into your house and take the cash however

That’s because they don’t have the technical means to extract that money from your house without entering it. I’m sure they would gladly do it if they could.

> Also you haven't answered my question, which I think compares better to this situation than a random million dollars deposited into my account.

In your “car with unpaid option” example I think the manufacturer is in the right to remove it if they didn’t explicitly say you can keep it.

> No one randomly gave this guy an upgrade - it was a warranty replacement with a better item, that happens literally all the time in all kinds of industries. What doesn't happen is the manufacturer turning around few years later and taking the item back.

It’s not clear from the tweet thread if Tesla actually said “sure, you can keep the larger battery”. It seems it was an assumption made by the original owner based on… passage of time and Tesla’s inaction I guess?

>>In your “car with unpaid option” example I think the manufacturer is in the right to remove it if they didn’t explicitly say you can keep it.

See, this is where we're going to disagree. Manufacturer's control over an item ends when the item is sold. If they have an issue with how the car was released from warranty repair, then they can go after the service centre that did the repair, not the owner. Or even if they want to go after the owner, they should do it through legal means, not just modify your product without asking.

>>It’s not clear from the tweet thread if Tesla actually said “sure, you can keep the larger battery”.

Tesla doesn't need to say that. It literally doesn't work like this anywhere, ever. The car was released after the warranty repair, documents were signed for that I'm sure, and after that point the car is what it is. If they installed a larger battery(and enabled it), whether intentionally or by accident, then it belongs to you at that point. Manufacturer should not be able to modify a product you own without your explicit permission, full stop.

I'll use one other analogy and then will give analogies a rest I think.

Imagine picking up a brand new car from the dealer, the car is advertised as having CarPlay support. You buy it, drive it around, then after a year bring it in for its first service - during which the manufacturer goes "oh, but this car was never actually speced with CarPlay support, it must have been a mistake at the factory, we'll remove it now". They might be technically correct, but it literally should be illegal for them to remove it. It's not different than them saying "oh the car was built with 7 seats but we can see that it was ordered with 5, so we removed the 2 extra seats during service" - again, that would be just theft. The car was released from their ownership as-is, and if they have an issue they can pursue it through courts, not just remove an item they think doesn't belong to you.

Like, what if they got it wrong? What if the battery upgrade was actually paid for and Tesla says it wasn't? Do we want them to have unlimited right to modify a product that YOU OWN, just because their database says something? Or should they go through the legal system if they think something is wrong? Because I'm very sure I know what the answer to this one is.

Your bank makes a mistake and adds a million dollars to your account balance when you tried to deposit $100.

In this scenario, the bank also tells you: “we are giving you a million dollars, it’s yours”. Then, 3 years later, someone else at the same bank says: “oopsies, we actually made a mistake, so we withdrew that million from your account”.

It’s even worse, imagine you actually received that million, as a payment for something, from someone else who originally received it from the bank.

> the bank also tells you: “we are giving you a million dollars, it’s yours”.

This doesn’t seem to be the case with the larger battery though? Nothing in the tweet thread indicates that Tesla explicitly stated the car is now a 90 and the original owner can keep it forever.

The answer in the UK is "No."

Misdirected payments can be disputed by the reciever in which case it gets settled with legal action by the sender.

There must be a difference between “misdirected” payments vs “they accidentally added a few extra zeros at the end” though. Surely the receiver has no recourse for the latter.

It's the same situation. The money doesn't legally belong to the reciever, but there is little you can do outside of the courts if they want to be a dick about it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com