Karsten Thiemann1h ago
Human Brain Enthusiast

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116377687987470957

“But you can still read your existing books! And jailbreak it to upload more!”

Imagine having a car that the manufacturer one day just declares that you can’t put gas in anymore.

To get gas you’d have to cut a hole into your car so you can sneak some in bypassing the inlet. But you can’t go to real gas stations anymore so you have to get gas in a back alley from some random guy.

1:06pmWeb
Show threadFrère Jacques3h ago
@thomasfuchs
Are you aware that there were already car manufacturers that tried to force their customers into in subscription plans to enable hardware features like seat heatening etc.?
Show threadBård H. (lvl 49 🇳🇴)2h ago

@frere_jacques @thomasfuchs

Nissan recently pulled their app for no valid reason at all.

I choose the car back in December, partially because I knew I could pre-heat it from my phone whenever I needed to.

Now preheating only works if I need to use the car at the exact same time every single day, regardless of temperature outside.

But hey... fuck me, right?

Show threadHuman Brain Enthusiast2h ago
@baardhaveland @frere_jacques
Show threadDave Wilburn 2h ago

@frere_jacques @thomasfuchs

And there are others like Fisker and more recently Nissan that have partially or fully dropped support for their cars that are still on the road.

This is one of the major reasons I'd be reluctant to buy a modern car, especially an EV car. I'm happy that my 14 year old Ford Focus continues to run well. I doubt I'd be able to drive something newer that long. Manufacturers are cramming more and more tech into cars, often with a lot of creepy surveillance features, but none of them are future-proofing them to last a decade or more.

Show threadkatherine montalto34m ago
@DaveMWilburn @frere_jacques @thomasfuchs I have a 2010 Toyota and I'm really bummed at the idea of the used car stock that comes after that.
Show threaddecapitae2h ago
@thomasfuchs This is the age, where the random guy in the back alley is providing more societal value and contribution that all of the corporations claiming said value combined.
Show threadJosh2h ago

@thomasfuchs
Feel more and more that firmware should be uncopyrightable. *As was originally the case*

It's just as much part of the machine as its physical components.

Show threadDark Matter Zine2h ago
@thomasfuchs I had a large kindle then Amazon bricked it. I am disabled so a “normal” sized kindle is not a consideration. I started hating Amazon about that time. I mean REALLY hating it.
Show threadelenyte 🇪🇺1h ago
@thomasfuchs or... let people choose the software even for the new devices, because they've already paid for the device itself. Kindles are great; the official software that runs on them, on the other hand... put me off reading on it for several years
Show threadAedius Filmania ⚙️🎮🖊️1h ago

@thomasfuchs

That's something existing for a lot of agricultural machinery, and we can bet they dream to do it and maybe some brand are planning it for our cars.

Show threadstevelord43m ago
@[email protected] imagine if it was legally required to have been jailbroken from day one.
Show threadSmashedRatOnPress9m ago

@thomasfuchs This line jumped out at me:
"Amazon said performing a factory reset on affected Kindles would make them unusable."
So... you can't reset a device and hand it over to the secondary/used market for any purpose (other than destructive recycling of parts?)...

Contrast: Last week I did a factory reset on my rarely-used Kobo touch device (2011), and it's humming along just fine; it even updated over the wire after the reset and account switch. And can load new books.

Show threadChris Petrilli41s ago
@thomasfuchs as a compromise they can have a BlendTec.