[bboygravity]

It's all about milking and rent-seeking: greed.

Every device/vehicle/system now needs to be connected to the internet and needs you to download an app.

Is that for the consumer? No. That's for the manufacturer.

For milking be reselling your data and/or spying on you and/or charging extra because they can and/or the capability to turn any device into literal trash by not providing updates or bug fixes to a half-baked alpha software that it shipped with.

Blame your government. There could and should be laws against that or at the very least incentives to prevent it.

[Roark66]

>Blame your government. There could and should be laws against that or at the very least incentives to prevent it.

In a democracy the government is a proxy for the people. I blame the people. If the majority was conscious of their rights (or at least what these rights should be) the governments would have no choice and they'd bring laws that protect these rights. Yes, no democracy is perfect, there are lobbyists, corruption etc, but if the large majority of the population wants something all these lobbying and corruption can only delay it.

The issue with the government(s) is a symptom, not a cause. The cause is that the majority of people have no spine. They'll sell their privacy and rights gladly for a tiny bit of perceived convenience, entertainment or status. It's like this famous saying "people that are willing to sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither". Substitute privacy/ownership for freedom and convenience/entertainment for safety and it will still be true.

Neither me nor my partner own a smartwatch/health band. Why? Because we literally found no brand that could be used without setting up silly "online accounts" and having our personal details (including health) harvested. The pine watch is an exception, but last time I checked the software was not ready for daily use.

Personally, despite the above, I'm a "long term optimist". I think people eventually will learn to value their privacy, their right to ownership/repair and they will stop buying and using devices and software that infringe on these rights. But not before a generation or two come and go.

Consider other revolutions in human condition. For example the industrial revolution. It brought magnificent benefits, but also (especially initially) it was horrible for many people including children. Eventually the masses started paying attention and worker rights were established, but not a second before the majority was ready to sacrifice a lot to fight for it. It will. Be like this with our "digital revolution".

[2devnull]

“I blame the people.”

Psychology is a science that studies human behavior, and like all sciences it works mostly. As a result, human minds can be easily hacked by those with the motivation to do so. Psychological science can be employed, things like A/B testing are very effective with enough data, which our digital systems easily provide. Ads are the wholesome version of that, because they are overt. We know the ads are trying to change the way we think and act. Corporate news is an example of the less wholesome side of using psychological science against humans. The humans aren’t to blame. Humans are animals and easy to hack, and our economy is largely, mostly I’d say, based on people hacking/behavioral engineering.

[ethbr1]

My takeaway from social psych was that it was far easier and cheaper to convince 2 ignorant people than it was to change 1 educated person's mind.

Which boils majority democracy down to the median level of education.

[ImPostingOnHN]

considering technology is evolving faster than humans, using technology to exploit the unchangeable stupidity of humans seems like the winning move

[hakre]

The only question that remains then perhaps is, whether this statement was from the inside or the outside.

[jrowen]

> They'll sell their privacy and rights gladly for a tiny bit of perceived convenience, entertainment or status.

How does that mean they have no spine? It sounds like they made a decision on what was more valuable to them. You could argue that they might not have been fully informed. But I think the reality is that they just don't care that much because they don't feel harmed by it. The segment of people that are going to even consider trying to repair a digital device rather than paying to get it fixed or getting a new one is probably vanishingly small (and very over-represented on this site).

I could easily see things going the other way, where the lack of digital privacy becomes even more of an unquestioned norm. These things can hold in a kind of equilibrium as long as the entities that hold the power don't use it to cause perceived harm above a threshold. We have the technology to do a lot more scanning of license plates, facial recognition, automated speeding tickets, etc. I'm kind of an optimist in that I think people will generally maintain this balance (or maybe a pragmatist - it's not really in their interest to upset the apple cart, but they will test the limits sometimes).

[hnwizard]

It's really evil and indeed against the customer, and it applies to pretty much any real product out there nowadays from cars to washing machines to water boilers. It's all designed to fall apart, break and stop working.

What about the incalculable environmental factor for all of this? Nobody cares.

[amelius]

> It's all about milking and rent-seeking: greed.

And greed starts to become an issue when managers think they need a raise.

But to be fair, if you're not an engineer is there much else you can take pride in other than driving up profits by whatever means?

[tstrimple]

It’s weird how people in tech think they are superior to their less-technical colleagues. Everyone outside of software development is a moron and the entire world would be better if programmers ran everything with no oversight. Somehow only engineers are moral and everyone else is purely motivated by profit. But engineers are above that! It’s so ridiculous.

[deafpolygon]

Especially since the engineers are the ones who created this.