Indeed, without competition and regulation the free market doesn’t work, and never has.
The manufacturers are in Trusts, secretly cooperating on not competing and maximizing profit at the expense of consumers and product and service quality.
That said, we still shouldn’t buy their shit when possible, and to disable problematic things when possible, (which is a federal crime, introduced in the 90’s at the behest of CD companies/record companies, whereby any type of digital lock cannot be broken without suffering 4 years in federal prison.
I’d also say we need more old school hackers and restorers, that is to say folks who can work on hardware. It may be illegal to crack some code but physically gutting something to spoof, hotwire, or bypass their shit software through entirely physical means works as a better long term method. Restoration and maintenance of old tech is a lot easier, half the time something is broken it’s either just a wire or the power being bad.
They know this, and that’s why they wait to do things like this until they know you have relatively little choice.
Not that you shouldn’t care, but it’s worth remembering the guiding hand of the market is not an all powerful weapon.
Indeed, without competition and regulation the free market doesn’t work, and never has.
The manufacturers are in Trusts, secretly cooperating on not competing and maximizing profit at the expense of consumers and product and service quality.
That said, we still shouldn’t buy their shit when possible, and to disable problematic things when possible, (which is a federal crime, introduced in the 90’s at the behest of CD companies/record companies, whereby any type of digital lock cannot be broken without suffering 4 years in federal prison.
I’d also say we need more old school hackers and restorers, that is to say folks who can work on hardware. It may be illegal to crack some code but physically gutting something to spoof, hotwire, or bypass their shit software through entirely physical means works as a better long term method. Restoration and maintenance of old tech is a lot easier, half the time something is broken it’s either just a wire or the power being bad.