[rightbyte]

So IoT killed his cow.

"The Zug farmer Bircher was lucky that certain parts of his milking systems were disconnected from the computer. He was able to continue milking his livestock despite the hacker attack."

Don't connect important machines to the internet... all these hacker stories comes down to the same fundamental mistake.

If not as a privacy and rent seeking nightmare. You are in reach of every hooligan in the world.

[mike_hearn]

The interesting thing about this one is that he presumably didn't download any malware onto it. Such machines just run a single app that comes from the factory, and aren't use for general computing.

So - how did the malware get in?

[mrguyorama]

>Such machines just run a single app that comes from the factory, and aren't use for general computing.

And those machines are always running a purpose built program made by the lowest bidder and have TRIVIAL flaws to exploit.

The malware got in the same way malware got into Windows 2000 back in the day: the code exposed to the network is trash and is full of holes you can drive a truck through.

[robertlagrant]

Rent seeking again. How is this rent seeking?

[illwrks]

From reading above, I assume they are referring to the software company hosting the data for the herd in the cloud which then has a reliance on networking, which then requires a recurring fee to access.

In reality a local version on a standalone system would probably be better as most farmers may not need anything more than a local system with a soft and hard copy backup for safetly.

The cloud data is probably being sold to hedge funds to make bets on yields/futures.

[3np]

The SaaSification of something that should have been a product.

[robertlagrant]

But that's nothing to do with rent seeking. Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

[rightbyte]

Maybe the phrase I rather should have used would be "profiteering"?

But according to Wikipedia, I think the "classic example" fits many SaaS vendors:

    The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. *All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free*.

[robertlagrant]

But how does that fit SAAS vendors? If someone cut my fibre wire and added a box that stopped it working if I didn't pay them, I would say that that is rent seeking. A SAAS vendor doesn't seem to fit that pattern.

[rightbyte]

Perpetual use of software used to be free after purchase. Nowadays SaaS is more or less the norm.

[3np]

> Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

That sounds like your personal narrower definition. Where did you get that from?

The wider use is both historically and semantically accurate and I believe people familiar with the term will still recognize its intended meaning today.

Needlessly making a physical product unusable without the continued subscription to an associated service, and designing the product in such a way that only the manufacturer can/may provide that service (aka vendor-lock-in) is pretty much rent-seeking, yeah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

[zappchance]

There are other forms of rent-seeking; I believe a term that more narrowly fits your definition is "regulatory capture".

[robertlagrant]

Making a SAAS out of a product is one of those definitions?

[snakeyjake]

Just leave it be.

"Rent seeking" is an "I hate everything" buzzphrase that people use without understanding, like "gaslighting" and "third spaces".

It is useless to try and correct the error.