From @pluralistic:

"Earlier this year, many people with Argus optical implants – which allow blind people to see – lost their vision when the manufacturer, Second Sight, went bust.

"Nano Precision Medical, the company's new owners, aren't interested in maintaining the implants, so that's the end of the road for everyone with one of Argus's 'bionic' eyes. The $150,000 per eye that those people paid is gone, and they have failing hardware permanently wired into their nervous systems.

"Having a bricked eye implant doesn't just rob you of your sight – many Argus users experience crippling vertigo and other side effects of nonfunctional implants. The company has promised to 'do our best to provide virtual support' to people whose Argus implants fail – but no more parts and no more patches."

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/12/unsafe-at-any-speed/#this-is-literally-your-brain-on-capitalism

Pluralistic: Orphaned neurological implants (12 Dec 2022) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

@Marmoset @pluralistic

Good grief. This is the definition of both "Market Failure", as well as the serious problems with society's over-dependence on proprietary technologies that people have no control of themselves!

@fletch31337 @Marmoset @pluralistic this is #PlannedObsolesence and I hope the people affected can #ClassAction the new owner into #FLOSS'ing the tech...

This is worse than #DeusExHumanRevolution and #RepoMen together, isn't it?

Cc: @stman

Edthedev (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] Excellent write up. Worth highlighting: "There's no ethical case for permanently attaching computers to people's nervous systems without giving them the absolute, irrevocable right to nominate who maintains those computers and how."

Mastodon @ SDF