Show threadCory DoctorowNov 9, 2023

Adversarial interoperability represents a serious threat to established business. If you're a printer company gouging on toner, your customers might defect to a rival that jailbreaks your security measures. That's what happened to #Lexmark, who lost a case against the toner-refilling company #StaticControls, which went on to *buy* Lexmark:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy

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Felony Contempt of Business Model: Lexmark's Anti-Competitive Legacy

In 2002, Lexmark was one of the leading printer companies in the world. A division of IBM—the original tech giant—Lexmark was also a pioneer in the now-familiar practice of locking customers in to expensive "consumables," like the carbon powder that laser-printers fuse to paper to produce printouts...

Electronic Frontier Foundation