[earhart]

Except the apps are the 3rd-party parts.

In your example: Volkswagen imposes quality controls on those parts, making sure they're not going to blow up or subvert the car.

As soon as other shops can install 3rd-party parts, you have a race to the bottom for shops, no one's enforcing quality controls, and you wind up with cars that, for example, get better performance by violating emissions standards except when they're actively being tested.

(So, maybe we should be using some manufacturer other than Volkswagen. :-)

[gambiting]

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say.

>>As soon as other shops can install 3rd-party parts

But....they can. Of course they can. What's more, both EU and US law protects the ability of 3rd parties to make replacement parts, and your ability as the consumer to fit those parts. The law goes so far as forbidding manufactuers from voiding your warranty due to fitting of non-OEM parts unless they can specifically prove that the part that you fitted caused problems.

>>you wind up with cars that, for example, get better performance by violating emissions standards except when they're actively being tested.

Again, that's already a thing and has been a thing since forever. Modding is extremely popular in some circles. Just like flashing your phone with custom FW is popular in certain circles too, but that doesn't mean that once it's allowed everyone and their grandma will suddenly run some HAXXOR build of iOS.

[earhart]

It was, in hindsight, a lame attempt at a joke, based on Volkswagen's history with skirting emissions controls.

More seriously, it's hard to know what all's installed on your phone, and what all it's doing; car parts are intrinsically sandboxed.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when always-connected self-driving cars have enough compute power to run self-driving systems and people are free to install random apps without great security (because car manufacturers seem to be awful at that). I'm predicting cutesy weather apps that quietly mine crypto all night long...

[saagarjha]

A bad car part can absolutely cause your car to crash, much more than a malicious app on iOS, which may not even be able to access your photos or messages.

[zepto]

A malicious app on iOS can pose as something it’s not, and ask for your mom’s credit card number.

[gambiting]

So can a website, these sort of hypotheticals just seem like pure scaremongering.

[zepto]

Yes, definitely so can a website.

The whole point of Apps is that they are reviewed and therefore are safer than random stuff on the web.

It’s would be scaremongering if these kinds of threat were hypothetical, but of they are pretty widely known.

[zepto]

It’s true that EU and US law protect the ability of 3rd parties to make replacement car parts.

But.. the law also holds those 3rd parties responsible for damage caused by failures of their parts.

No such protection exists for software.

Let’s start with some working legal privacy and fraud protections for software.

Then we can compare software to cars.

Until then, let people buy into a walled garden if they want to.

[paxys]

> In your example: Volkswagen imposes quality controls on those parts, making sure they're not going to blow up or subvert the car.

And they are free to do it. Have your own set of trusted dealers and vendors. Void warranty for off-branded parts. However, once I buy the car I am also free to go to any shitty unsafe vendor I want. VW can't tell me not to do that, because it's my car not theirs.

Do you think it would be okay if Volkswagen remotely shut down your car because they didn't like the brand of gas you put in it (for your own safety of course)?

[m00x]

> In your example: Volkswagen imposes quality controls on those parts, making sure they're not going to blow up or subvert the car.

So, like almost everything you buy? This is why branding and reputation are important. You can be cheap, but you get what you pay for.

[chrisseaton]

But we don't want to have to check brands and research - we want a trusted party ensuring quality because their reputation is on the line.

[koyote]

That does not go away, there's nothing stopping you from buying genuine parts from the manufacturer if you trust them more than the competition.

[chrisseaton]

But having a system that accepts non-genuine parts leads to a more complicated system. Apple's system is simple. Android's system is more complicated because it has multiple app stores. I don't want that complexity.

[koyote]

That's an interesting way of thinking which I've not really encountered outside of Soviet-style centrally controlled economy advocates and the like.

Do you feel the same way about all other things in life where you are presented with a choice? Would you prefer there to only be a single grocery store you get your groceries from, for example?

[chrisseaton]

No I’m in favour of competition, but competition between simple clean focused products, not the Homer cars other people seem to want.

If you want a different App Store then market a different phone don’t drag down the iPhone.

[centimeter]

> get better performance by violating emissions standards

Good. 95% of emissions standards are bullshit.

In any case, the ability to theoretically violate regulations isn't a reason to preclude people from DIY or third party repairs.