[DevX101]

Now would be a good time to have a functional FTC commissioner. Doing a bait and switch like on a product that was sold with a set of features should be illegal. If I buy a car and the sales guy stops by my house the next day to take back the wheels, it would rightfully be seen as ridiculous.

[evrimoztamur]

America's lack of customer protection will hurt continue hurting its people. Ladies and gentlemen, please do something about it.

[tanepiper]

Laughs in European Consumer Protection

How's that "break regulation to innovate" working out for US?

[eadmund]

Well, the per-capita GDP of the poorest U.S. state — Mississippi — is greater than that of the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Poland and many others, and within 10% of Finland, Germany, Belgium and Austria. 34 of the 47 European states have lower per-capita GDPs than Mississippi.

The median per-capita U.S. state GDP is $78,649; the median per-capita European state GDP is $28,713.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

[kzrdude]

We have to ask ourselves what we want. Because it's not GDP, you can't eat GDP or sleep under it, you can't even withdraw it from the bank. So more directly, how does it influence our life? (Of course GDP influences our life to some extent.)

[heresie-dabord]

It is generally understood that GDP is a poor measure of what matters to people. The OP should know this.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/quality-of-...

[pc86]

It may be generally understood to you, but not to me, and the link you provided says absolutely nothing about GDP.

[tguinot]

You also have to ask yourself why so many europeans try to move to the US for a better life (especially talented ones) and why almost no american does it the other way around. (The number is ridiculously low in comparison)

People move east to west across the pond, because they want the life offered by the US economy.

[hollerith]

>The number is ridiculously low in comparison

Where are you getting your confidence that that is so?

[sebazzz]

> You also have to ask yourself why so many europeans try to move to the US for a better life

I can guarantee you that number is now not growing so much.

[throwawayffffas]

I mean you can eat GDP and sleep under it. That's what it measures production.

[bognition]

Estimated GDP in 2024 28.9 T vs 2025 of 13.3 T

That’s a huge gain in 20 years. Where is the commensurate equivalent growth in housing, education, healthcare, cheap food, etc…

There is a huge disconnect between GDP increase and the economic pressure the majority of Americans feel.

[bko]

Take pretty much any quality of life thing. Just as one example

Mississippi: The average home size 2,065 square feet

United Kingdom: The average home size is 818 square feet

No, you cannot "eat GDP", but its a useful proxy as it correlates very highly to a lot of things we do care about

[letier]

I wonder how it interacts with life expectancy.

There is a huge difference between Mississippi and the UK: 78.6 years for males and 82.6 years for females in the UK in 2020 to 2022. 68.6 years for males and 75.2 years for females in Mississippi in 2020 and 67.7 years for makes and 74.3 years for females in Mississippi in 2021. Might go up a bit if you have 2022 numbers, but the difference is huge.

[ropejumper]

This requires a justification for why home size is a good indicator of quality of life, or for why it's more important than other indicators.

[xandrius]

Population density

Mississipi: 24.5/km2

UK: 279/km2

Maybe, only maybe, that has an effect on house sizes?

[analog31]

It means that GDP doesn't buy prosperity.

We've been told for decades that letting our economy turn out like Europe's was something to fear, while they outpaced us in virtually all quality of life measures.

We can no longer claim being the richest country in the world as a source of uniqueness or justification -- handed to us by the gods. I think this is part of the reason for the present descent into authoritarianism.

[AlexandrB]

> I think this is part of the reason for the present descent into authoritarianism.

Which? The American descent into authoritarianism or the European descent into authoritarianism?

[nielsbot]

the descent into authoritarianism is a result of the failure of neo-liberals to represent the working class.

unfortunately the wealthy are going to concede more wealth and power or it will continue.

[h2zizzle]

To finish the story here, a look back:

https://bsalert.com/news/2596/Who_Are_You_Better_Than.html

People in this country perennially choose wanting to be "better than" over wanting to be happy.

[redserk]

Strictly looking at GDP is a terrible way to compare economic conditions between US states and countries.

GDP of Mississippi looks great only because of a strong dollar. It doesn’t really account for living conditions.

[nerdponx]

It's great if you are a wealthy business owner or investor, and you want to push deregulation propaganda, because deregulation would allow you to get even richer.

[h2zizzle]

Mississippi is perhaps a poor example to use, as its wealth is highly concentrated, as well as segregated along racial lines. It houses some very affluent communities and also some with open sewers or no public utilities at all, and a state house entirely unconcerned about reconciling the two because it's been gerrymandered to hell in order to prevent the ethnic group that makes up nearly 40% of its population from having anywhere near commensurate representation.

[pavel_lishin]

And is the average Mississippian better off than the average citizen of UK, France, Italy, etc..?

[rvnx]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jackson+Mississ...

Interesting, there seem to be a consensus about it.

[thinkingtoilet]

Ok. Now compare Mississippi to those places on wealth inequality, life expectancy, education, health care, social mobility, etc...

[myrmidon]

A significantly better metric to compare would be median hourly wage (ideally, purchasing power adjusted, but that's hard).

The US average is actually behind wealthier European nations there (Ireland, Scandinavia, Benelux, Switzerland, Germany): 20$/h compared to ~20€/h. Purchasing power adjustments would also probably favor Europe I guess.

So the much stronger US GDP/capita output apparently does very little for the average citizen...

This was honestly surprising to me, I actually expected the US to be comfortably ahead in this (specifically significantly ahead of Germany). France is also much weaker than I expected in this (~17€/h) not including it was cherry-picking on my part, Eastern Europe is super poor (Bulgaria under 5€/hour!), and the top contenders were unsurprising, except maybe how well Denmark did (~30€/h).

Sources: eurostat + statista (because couldn't find what I wanted on bls.gov)

[AlexandrB]

> Purchasing power adjustments would also probably favor Europe I guess.

I doubt it. Germany and especially Switzerland have a quite hight cost of living. Coming from Canada, I get sticker shock every time I go to the US because of how cheap everything is. I had the opposite reaction going to Europe (except for Italy).

It would also be interesting to compare take-home (after tax) pay.

[myrmidon]

You are 100% right about Switzerland (but its so far ahead that adjustments would not matter too much), for the others its probably barely double digit percentage adjustments.

My personal experience is that German supermarkets are priced extremely competitive (Lidl/Aldi specifically), and Italy felt more expensive by comparison to me (except maybe for local produce and cheese).

Comparing after-tax pay instead would help the US pull ahead for sure, but I feel a bit mixed about that because those taxes pay for stuff like child- and healthcare, which in the US is probably significantly more expensive out-of-pocket than the median EU citizens pays in taxes for the same.

[oa335]

I’d wager that the median European is happier and healthier than the median Mississippian.

[rezonant]

I'm sure the GDP evenly distributes amongst the population right? It's not like the US has massive wealth disparity or anything that could massively affect the implications of a simple per capita GDP comparison.

[999900000999]

Maternal death rate in Mississippi, 36 per 100k

https://mississippitoday.org/2023/01/26/maternal-mortality-r...

In Greece , 8 per 100k https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/economies/greece

That's just a random health stat, but it's clear the Greek have a far healthier population.

But Mississippi has more millionaires so I guess it's fine.

[pc86]

I have to imagine you cherry-picked maternal death rate (which is anomalously high in the US for reasons that even experts in maternal death cannot explain) in bad faith because the all-cause mortality rate in the US is 1,044 per 100k compared to 1,412 per 100k in Greece - 35% higher[0].

I guess it's not so clear.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/death-rat...

[999900000999]

Life expectancy in Mississippi is 10 years shorter than in Greece

>Mississippi ranked dead last in a CDC ranking of all 50 states and the District of Columbia when looking at 2021 data. The magnolia state had a 70.9-year life expectancy rate, slightly lower than West Virginia's 71.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2024/12/29/cdc-data...

>The current life expectancy for Greece in 2025 is 83.10 years, a 0.18% increase from 2024. The life expectancy for Greece in 2024 was 82.95 years, a 0.18% increase from 2023. The life expectancy for Greece in 2023 was 82.80 years, a 0.2% increase from 2022. The life expectancy for Greece in 2022 was 82.64 years, a 0.2% increase from 2021.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/grc/gre...

Greece has a older population. Plus we're talking about Mississippi not the entire US.

[latexr]

> which is anomalously high in the US for reasons that even experts in maternal death cannot explain

Doesn’t seem like a mystery that a country who is so “pro-life” they’d rather let women die than properly treat miscarriages has a high maternal death rate.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/27/texas-abortion-death...

[bko]

Great, it's 8.3 in Albania. Doesn't really help you if you're a typical person making less than 10k a year

[jandrese]

Beyond what everybody else has said, I wonder how much of that difference is due to the healthcare in Mississippi being counted as part of GDP instead of as a state service? Ever ballooning healthcare costs are the cancer that is eating the developed world alive.

[chillingeffect]

Mississippi is the chronic showcase of american wealth inequality.

Mississippi has the lowest life expectancy in the U.S. (about 73 years), significantly lower than the national average (77).

Mississippi has the lowest median household income in the U.S. (about $52,000 in 2022), compared to a U.S. median of around $75,000.

Mississippi has high rates of obesity, diabetes, and preventable diseases, partly due to poor healthcare access.

France and Italy have top-tier universal healthcare, while the UK's NHS, despite challenges, still provides free-at-point-of-use care.

In Mississippi, many rely on Medicaid or have limited healthcare options.

Mississippi’s school system ranks among the worst in the U.S. European countries have stronger public education systems and more government support for higher education.

[Hikikomori]

Thanks for being a great example of what this person wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43385268#43387809

[cool_dude85]

How do US state GDP per-capitas compare to the GDP per-capita of Ireland? And if this comparison is not meaningful or relevant, what does that say about the choice of metric you made?

[_Algernon_]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

[barbazoo]

And who cares about that? GDP is not a good indicator about people’s quality of life. Maybe of the top 0.1%.

[arwhatever]

Notwithstanding the other comments about the effect GDP per capita might or might not have on individuals, how much of this GDP difference is driven by the strength or weakness of consumer protections within a given economy?

Is higher GDP per capita truly a strong argument against consumer protections?

[Aeolun]

Per capita GDP is a bad measure when so much of it is captured by the 1%

[Loughla]

GDP is a trash measure of what life is actually like. It should go away.

[xnickb]

If they at least cited PPP I'd maybe buy their argument..

[xnickb]

How is GDP per-capita related to the customers having any rights?

[michaelt]

Some people think deregulation equals productivity equals prosperity.

Sure, America has the most school shootings and medical bankruptcies. But they also have the biggest houses, the biggest cars and the most private swimming pools per capita.

[grafmax]

Mississippi has much higher rates of infant mortality, poverty, preventable deaths, and lower overall education levels than most of the EU. Economic output fails to capture the degree to which the economy serves its people.

While average GDP sounds like it’s something that everyone participates in, in reality, under capitalism wealth and income follow a Pareto distribution. As a result, GDP per capita tells us more about total output than about how it is actually distributed among the population, who is benefiting, and thus the well being of the society as a whole.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

> under capitalism wealth and income follow a Pareto distribution.

And under the other forms of government thus far tried?

Anyway, Capitalism doesn't explain wealth inequality. The ability to accumulate capital and apply it to industry with limited liability doesn't inherently cause wealth inequality. That's the fault of Greedism, Over-inflated-sense-of-selfism, and Giving Money to Politicians is like giving Whiskey and Car Keys to Teenage Boys-ism.

We're over taxed and over regulated, that's nothing to do with Capitalism.

[chabes]

Capitalism isn’t a form of government. It’s an economic system. Politicized, sure.

[grafmax]

Wealth inequality isn’t simply a side effect of capitalism—it’s structurally necessary thanks to the division of society into two classes, capitalists and workers.

I do agree that a capitalist economic system isn’t alone in manifesting inequality. I would further acknowledge that under capitalism the amount of wealth inequality differs from one capitalist society to the other. Yet the present levels of inequality we see around us are nearly unprecedented.

You blame greed. But capitalism enshrines the profit motive. It incentivizes capitalists to maximize profit regardless of the effect on the working class even if that means bribing politicians or whatever. Greed is a central feature of capitalism, not some personal failing to be explained at the individual level.

Meanwhile, neoliberal deregulation has been enacted for the last 45 years. What are the effects of this? Real working-class wages have remained stagnant while the wealth gap has drastically increased. Should we believe the answer is more deregulation?

Under a deregulation ideology, the wealthy push for deregulation when it suits them on the one hand while benefiting from and expanding government influence on the other (subsidies, bailouts, regulatory capture, etc.). That’s why after 45 years of a deregulatory ideology operating at the highest levels of our governments, subsidies and regulatory capture still exist.

Consider the present moment. Elon Musk slashes government spending while receiving millions from the federal government. This is not a bug. It’s a central feature of this ideology.

We may have different members of the upper class at the wheel now, but they are still using the same siren’s call of deregulation to justify their policies, ostentatiously reducing government influence in some areas while tactically expanding it in others - not just handouts to Trump’s cronies but also expansion of executive powers and erosion of civil liberties.

[hammock]

GDP per capita of Ireland is double that of the UK? Is that because of the tax dodge thing? When did that happen?

[padjo]

We get touchy if you call it a tax dodge but yes it’s generally not considered an accurate measure of wealth in Ireland. Modified GNI is the term used for the adjusted number.

[s_dev]

The fact that Mississipi and Bavaria Germany have the same GDP per capita tells you a lot about GDP.

[nathan_compton]

Yeah, but have you been to Mississippi?

[micromacrofoot]

you would not be making this comparison if you've spent time in mississippi

[InDubioProRubio]

And that GDP is one guy.. if you take him out of the state though, it gets dark pretty fast.. people dont vote for a return of monarchy if things are going well.

[IsTom]

> Poland

I don't know much about others, but perhaps you should be comparing ratio of GDP in the last 20 years, not absolute values. With Poland coming very poor out of communism and all.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Communism ended in Poland 35 years ago (1989). That's one or two generations ago.

That's long enough for everyone aged about 50 in 1989 to have aged out of the system.

How many decades should pass before we stop blaming present circumstances on the past?

[IsTom]

It takes time to create an economy. Even with consistent 5% yoy growth that's a few decades to catch up when you're starting with a few times less GDP per capita.

[stavros]

Well, it's working out really well for corporations to extract maximal value from their users, for sure.

[TheDong]

America will continue to cripple EU consumer protection too.

The EU ruled that the app store has to allow side-loading in the EU, but y'all still won't get a good browser because both Chrome and Mozilla have said making a side-loadable browser for iOS is only worth it if it can target the American market too, and the side-loading is region-locked.

So sure, y'all can side-load apps in the EU now, but you still can't install uBlock origin on firefox on your iphone thanks to america. Fuck yeah.

[robertlagrant]

> you still can't install uBlock origin on firefox on your iphone thanks to america

I'm not American, but this stance seems extremely biased. We only have Chrome and Mozilla due to America. Nothing's stopping an EU-originated browser from appearing, and with the America-funded open source Chromium, they would have 99.999% of the work already done.

[CivBase]

Making this example even worse, both Firefox and Chrome are open source (except for a few proprietary add-ons). An EU company wouldn't even need to make their own browser. They could just hard-fork one of those.

[TheDong]

I mean, currently they couldn't because EU's laws are too weak too.

An EU company that released chrome for iOS would have to pay Apple 0.50€ per side-load in "core technology fees", so if they didn't charge a bit, they couldn't, and no one pays for browsers.

They'd also have to pay apple I think 15% "Non-apple Payment Service Providers" fee for anything the user purchased in the app on their device, so i.e. if the user used amazon.com in the browser, the author of the browser would owe apple a percentage of each purchase.

But also it would take I would guess about 5 developers a year to actually port chrome to iOS, so you'd need a roughly 1 million dollar initial investment too.

[eddyg]

You know uBO installs just fine in Orion by Kagi⁽¹⁾ (which is in the regular App Store) and that it has a much better privacy policy,⁽²⁾ right? Fuck yeah.

⁽¹⁾ https://kagi.com/orion/

⁽²⁾ https://help.kagi.com/orion/privacy-and-security/respecting-...

[TheDong]

Unfortunately I'm only able to use browsers which run on linux so I can share history between my phone and all other computers.

If Orion had a linux version, maybe I'd consider it, but the firefox-skin on webkit lets me share history even if I can't install extensions, and my history is more important.

A browser that only works on iOS and macOS doesn't have a better privacy policy for me in practice, apple collects all sorts of information that my linux devices don't.

[bigfatfrock]

Had absolutely no idea Kagi was working on a browser, incredible. Thanks!

I might not even have to rely on a VPN into my house with a DNS blackhole anymore...

[jkaplowitz]

> So sure, y'all can side-load apps in the EU now, but you still can't install uBlock origin on firefox on your iphone thanks to america. Fuck yeah.

Well, America has never prohibited Apple from allowing iOS sideloading, either specifically in America or worldwide. I completely agree that it would be a beneficial economic regulation for the US to require the major gatekeepers to allow such access like the EU has (although ideally with fewer opportunities for bad-faith half-assed compliance attempts than the EU gave Apple), but the biggest blame here goes on Apple and not on any government.

[jajko]

Well, depends what your goals are. Agile economy focused on health of companies, high revenue, and ability to quickly adapt to changing environment? US is great for that. It sucks to be the bottom 70% maybe, OK till maybe 95% and great above.

EU focuses more on quality of life of all individuals, free access to healthcare and education, one just doesn't have these potentially very risky or destroying aspects of life which can easily break them for good in US and send them into homeless spiral. And somebody has to pay for that. Also those protections data are mostly anti-business and pro-citizens hence its aligned as it is. Also we lack agility and are pretty ossified.

Everybody has their own preferences, which also change over time. When single I always took more risky work due to higher rewards (and other benefits). With small kids I am happy to have some safety nets and lower my net income, and I'd bet many US (not only) young parents would appreciate that rather than raw higher paycheck. Also I have 50 paid vacation days per year as a regular employed person (90% contract), something I believe unthinkable in US unless you have your own company.

[bruce511]

Trust me, if you own your own company anywhere, 50 days paid vacation is unlikely. Owners tend to work more, not less.

Or let me be more flippant- sure I get 50 paid days off a year. I call it Sunday.

[Hikikomori]

If we use Elon as an example regular CEOs probably have 300+ days off.

[bruce511]

I'm not sure Elon is a "regular CEO". He's more like an active investor where the companies are mostly run by other people without him there at all.

So yeah, not a typical "business owner" :)

[criddell]

Amazon also sold the Echo in Europe, so it’s going to be interesting to see how European Consumer Protection helps out in this case.

[bayindirh]

GDPR says "hi".

If users don't consent, Amazon can't collect. If users exercise their rights to be forgotten, Amazon has to delete. If Amazon breaks the thing because users have not consented, then Amazon will be on the hook for breaching the contract.

"It was working until yesterday, how come?" EU will ask.

[criddell]

> "It was working until yesterday, how come?" EU will ask.

How long does this process typically take? When do you think EU consumers either get the functionality back or receive compensation?

[mantas]

Isn't Alexa already quite a bit limited in EU?

[Nextgrid]

There is no downside to breaching the GDPR, as demonstrated by Facebook and Google still being in business.

The fines, if they ever arrive, are merely the cost of doing business - a small tax.

[latexr]

Clearly it is not true that there are no downsides, because those companies had to change behaviours and offer more data protections as a result. The goal of GDPR is not to bankrupt companies, but to fix behaviours.

I do agree fines take too long to come and are too small.

[elif]

Who said it was to innovate? The administration is cancelling research, actually deleting the department of education, bullying the university system into censoring, revoking diplomas, forbidding Chinese research collaborations. Innovation is not on the menu.

The regulations are being broken to enhance fortune 1000 profit margins.

[usrnm]

It's actually working very well for the US, just not the US consumers

[kerkeslager]

Can we not do this?

I think it would be more correct to say that a nation is made up of its people (consumers) than its corporations. Correcting to the latter is at best pedantic and at worst just incorrect.

[bayindirh]

You're right, we shall not do this, however when corporations have privileged rights over their consumers and their abuse of "the people of the nation" is not only ignored, but applauded for value generation, not doing this almost impossible.

I'm not from the US, but everything I see from a distance smells like power trip on one level below. HOAs abuse home owners, service providers abuse their users, corporations abuse their employees, etc.

That doesn't happen in the European side. When Bending Spoons bought Evernote, I was so sure that it'll be liquidated into the other tools they have and shuttered. Instead, every month, they're adding so much things and polishing it so much that I feel kinda bad for migrating away.

There's another way to do things.

[robertlagrant]

> HOAs abuse home owners

There are plenty of local authorities who exercise strange levels of power over small changes to people's houses. The difference is that when that happens to you vs a HOA, you're also paying their salary to avoid jail time.

[technopol]

I think Americans do similar for the EU- think of the government and other things we see in the news or identify with it first before its people.

[bsenftner]

Ha! The United States has "special" citizens called corporations that due to the US's "law of wealth", get to do anything they want as humans legally without any of the drawbacks. It's so ass backwards here, in the USA, smart people are turned inside out with nonsense. Then the fact that there is no real effective communications training at all in all but the media manipulation educations, nobody knows how to communicate, they try, but it's pathetic, seriously sad parrots just echoing talking points with nothing being communicated.

[gryfft]

"It's actually really good for me, it's just bad for almost every cell in my body"

[oblio]

Well, I think the proper analogy would be that it's good for me but bad for my kidneys and colon.

Edit: LOL at the downvotes. It's true. The US is basically mistreating its "undesirables". In the US if you're poor, f** you. Payday loans, food deserts, car dependency, etc, everything is meant to hit you while you're down.

[Planktonne]

Something bad for your kidneys is bad for you as well, even if you don't notice at the time/don't mind that level of damage.

If the US harms its population, it is harming itself, because -- like every state -- it's at least partially made of its people.

[ohmygoodniche]

Not sure why you're downvoted? I can't think of almost anything that isn't designed to cripple poor or vulnerable people? Health insurance, medicine costs, student loans, etc etc. I never thought about it like this...

[pjc50]

Has anyone checked whether this is also happening in the EU? Whether they've bothered about GDPR compliance or not.

[labster]

I’m afraid the only thing we can do at this point is gun for an economic depression, ride out three years of that just like with Hoover (1929–33), and upgrade to New Deal 2.0 beta. There’s no amount of protests that can convince the median Trump voter that anything is wrong in America unless it affects him personally. And no amount of protest will convince Trump that he has made a single mistake in his entire life.

[xmprt]

I should have a bit more faith but at this point I feel like the median voter might see their world getting worse but still be convinced somehow that Democrats are behind it because Republicans have their messaging on point and Democrats are doing the equivalent of a silent protest.

[bruce511]

All democrats really need to say is "you voted for this". None of these actions are surprising so far, they were all well telegraphed before the election.

In a year or so when there's truly new stuff to complain about the ln the message becomes "you voted for them".

[labster]

Protip: voters don’t like to be blamed for their actions, it makes them defensive, this is a losing strategy. Voters like to blame politicians for letting them down.

[bruce511]

Voters might not like being blamed. But that doesn't make it "not their fault".

If the get defensive I just shrug and repeat "you voted for this".

[zonkerdonker]

Turns out, propoganda really does work. Just takes a few billionaires, a few hostile nations states, and some exploitable algorithms

[amelius]

We need to have a close look at free speech, especially now that techniques from psychological warfare are being used, not only in political propaganda but even in advertisements.

[alabastervlog]

And a multi-decade effort to shift courts toward a certain flavor of right wing perspective, so you can get a ruling like Citizens United, among others.

[deesep]

I suspect Democrats remain silent because they believe nothing new can be said about Trump's policies. His supporters will counter any argument, so it's better to step back and let them experience Trump 2.0 without distractions. Over time, they may realize the harm he causes.

[speed_spread]

Except it won't work, they will retro justify the leopard eating their face to their death bed, taking down everybody with them as they do so. Their reasoning isn't just impervious to logical arguments from others, it also resists the painful reality and consequences of their choices. It's a media induced debilitating mental illness.

[Hikikomori]

Should have happened in 2008.

[pjc50]

It's very likely that they're going to Liz Truss the budget, but without any comparable way of dealing with the consequences by swiftly removing the bad actors.

(when exactly is that anyway? I'm dimly aware of some drama with continuing resolutions)

[DFHippie]

It's over. The Republicans larded up the CR with poison pills and dared the Democrats to block it. Chuck Shumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, didn't have the stomach to do so, fearing the populace would be convinced all the resulting harms of a government shutdown would be pinned on the Democrats. He's probably right. They did vote for Trump twice in sufficient numbers to give him power. Anyway, that was the only point of leverage the Democrats had and now it's gone. In Shumer's calculation they never had it anyway.

[mystraline]

The democrats haven't been fighting for the 0-99% class for quite some time. Its been special cause this, social rage that.

Its unsurprising that when republicans finally get a chance to demolish basically every social program, they would not get stopped by democrats. (Aside a few progressives like AOC, Sanders, Ilhan, etc)

[notum]

I feel the issue is deeper than that. We no longer buy products, we rent them, it's hard for consumer protection laws to catch up with that (even European).

[whiplash451]

How so? The rental vs buy setup is orthogonal to respecting people's privacy.

[kerkeslager]

I 100% agree but unfortunately this is pretty far down the list of our biggest problems at the moment.

[amelius]

I'd be surprised if FTC had any teeth left after DOGE was done with them.

[Cthulhu_]

And yet this is what Tesla did. They sold a car and added a surcharge for full self-driving as a future option, or they added it as an upgrade option. But they never delivered. That's like buying a car with the promise of wheels but the wheels are never delivered (except you actually need the wheels etc).

I'm amazed there haven't been major class-action lawsuits raised against Tesla yet, both from consumers for not delivering what is promised (full self-driving), and from shareholders for not delivering what was announced years ago (semi, new roadster). And from shareholders for artificially inflating the stock value of Tesla to use as leverage to buy Tesla and / or fund SpaceX.

[rusk]

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Tesla floating on a cushion of private Saudi wealth?

[johnhaltonx21]

that's rivian ...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

I thought that was Lucid Motors.

Source e.g. https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64...

[iamacyborg]

Funding confirmed.

[szundi]

That’s different, delivering later (for example probably never) is not the same.

This is about removing a privacy feature.

[jonathanstrange]

IANAL but I thought bait and switch is illegal? It definitely is in the EU. Is it not in the US?

[amelius]

It is illegal, but suing is too costly.

[atoav]

Yeah but the ridiculously anti-consumer US has opted to elect politicians with so much billionaire miney, they'd rather get their moneys worth.

Who needs anti-coruption laws with a society like that? And who expects not to get fucked by coorporations when they have lost every incentive not to?

And the free market isn't the incentive you think it is when your're the monipolists that can crush or buy out the competition.

[imoreno]

Don't these usually come with ToS or something that has you agreeing that they can change the service any time?

[Taek]

ToS have limits, people in a practical sense aren't really able to read and understand the ToS of every product they buy, which means a ToS can only go so far in the ways it allows companies to be predatory against consumers.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Has that been tested in court? I would have thought a user wilfully or negligently misreading a ToS would not be a good legal defence (not that I agree with how I think the law would play out)

[shakna]

Yes [0].

> Unless the website operator can show that a consumer has actual knowledge of the agreement, an enforceable contract will be found based on an inquiry notice theory only if: (1) the website provides reasonably conspicuous notice of the terms to which the consumer will be bound; and (2) the consumer takes some action, such as clicking a button or checking a box, that unambiguously manifests his or her assent to those terms.

Its part of why changes of terms generally require you to accept them, before you can continue using a service.

Unambiguous consent, and understanding of consent, are required, as ToS fall under contract law. Which does make most ToS... Unenforceable.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-4_20-cv-07...

[beezlewax]

Nobody knows what they are consenting to. The law has failed us deeply in this regard.

[nitwit005]

The claim there is that they never saw the terms of service updates, and thus weren't aware of an arbitration clause, rather than terms of service generally not being valid.

[shakna]

There's more than one claim pointed out - specifically that ToS falls under contract law, which does require you agree to changes.

[muzani]

I always wonder how valid these actually are. There's probably a reasonable range.

Like a car park can say they're not liable for your car's safety, it doesn't mean they can steal your car. A roller coaster can say they're not liable for injuries but if they didn't inform you it's dangerous for pregnant people or if they violate some safety law, they're probably liable.

The bit about changing terms of service probably gives them some leeway to deal with law changes and stuff. If they're purposely being misleading to play bait and switch, that sounds like it's breaking a law somewhere.

[hnlmorg]

What you’re describing is that ToS cannot exonerate them from breaking other laws. Which is correct.

However the question is whether other laws have been broken in the first place.

[mihaaly]

Perhaps there should be license allowing the procurement and operation of consumer devices having overly complex (including language) ToC, making sure that the user knows what it takes to have and to operate a device like that. With categories for the various device categories, just like for vechicles (although cars and trafic rules are much simpler than ToCs, still that is a simple analogy to build up the complexity of ToCs).

[yaur]

When you buy a car there is a lot of required paperwork that they don't really give you time to read, so maybe.

[mort96]

They're not gonna refuse to sell you the car if you take the time to read the paperwork. And it's probably a large enough amount of money that you should take the time to at least skim it.

[briandear]

That’s generally loan paperwork. And you can take all the time you want to read.

[throwaway48476]

You shouldn't sign things you don't read. Cue the centipad.

[mjmas]

That would be illegal under the unfair contracts law here in Australia.

[z3t4]

It was not yours to begin with. Think of it as a service. Just give it back and go to a competitor. Ohh wait, there are no competitors! Monopolies suck! Especially if they are world-wide.

[firtoz]

There are competitors, even open source ones

[beezlewax]

These are not viable options for the vast majority of users. Most peppe don't have a clue how to set up open source options, let alone set them up with usable hardware.

The average consumer wants out of the box solutions that don't require a degree in Computer Science to use.

[zettabomb]

Home Assistant is getting far easier to set up than you might expect, especially because they now do in fact have out of the box devices. It's not quite as ridiculously simple, not quite yet, but they're rapidly improving and it won't be long until they're better than Amazon Alexa/Google Home/other commercial solutions.

[iamacyborg]

I am relatively tech savvy, installed HA recently in a VM on my media server and the thing was just a massive pain in the arse, particularly trying to migrate Thread devices from Apple Home to HA.

Sure things might be getting easier but they’re certainly not easy.

[mistro]

Just to chip in with a plug for HomeAssistant. I am really not very techy at all, but so far I have used the out-of-box HA Green version and:

-installed waterproof exterior socket, remotely controllable -installed various interior sockets -installed smart thermometer to control our little plant propagator

So far it seems to be a case of checking that the thing you are going to buy has a working HA integration program (which seem to be added on a fairly frequent basis) and then just adding it to the network. The only vaguely difficult thing I had to do was log in to my router homepage and change the wifi mode to allow the exterior socket to connect.

I'd much rather just not use Amazon/Google/etc where possible, as I don't like the feeling of being used.

[serial_dev]

What are these "out of the box devices"? I looked into things a couple of years ago, and back then it was all too much effort to set things up and keep things running and integrated, so I just went with Smart Life stuff from AliExpress. But would love to have Home Assistant if it means I don't need to spend weekends just reading docs, pairing, setting things up, connecting stuff...

[zettabomb]

Look at Home Assistant Green [0]. They've also got a smart speakers as of just recently [1], although they're still a "preview edition". The prices seem comparable to other similar smart home devices, IMO.

[0] https://www.home-assistant.io/green [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/

[nick__m]

For the wifi smartlife stuff, you can use the official cloud based integration or if you want local control, the unofficial tuyalocal. The official integration is really easy to use but if your internet connection drops, you can't control your devices so I prefer to use tuyalocal it still requires to add the devices to the smartlife app once and then you add a device from the addon by scanning a qr code with the app. Once this is done you have local control over the device.

Zigbee devices require more initial setup, you have to buy a dongle, install the Zigbee2mqtt addon and the mqtt integration, but once this is done adding a devices is a really simple process : you put the devices into pair mode and allow pairing for 90s in the Zigbee2mqtt page and rename your device to something useful.

[zimpenfish]

I've got HA set up (nearly 2 years now with a whole host of things connected: Bluetooth, WIFI, iOS devices, Zigbee, etc.) and I think I'm only just getting to the point now of two weekends worth of reading docs (primarily because their documentation seems to be written by developers rather than technical writers). Most time I've spent tinkering with HA was modifying their embedded `mastodon.py` to make it work with GotoSocial (but I think someone upstreamed a fix for that and it's no longer required.)

[import]

They're already better compared to commercial solutions regarding device/service support and complex automations.

But missing opinionated defaults, really, you still have to roll your own home/away/vacation solution. Creating a dashboard requires you to understand the meta of Home assistant which takes a lot of time.

People asking should I get PI or NUC every single day in the reddit. I am happy with my 2000lines long configuration file except scripts and automations. But it won't be easy for someone is not tech savvy.

[closewith]

Home assistant is a nightmare to set up. Even with their hardware, you need to learn a whole new vocabulary and God help you if you stay off the happy path.

If HA (which is a wonderful project) is your example of usable OSS software, then your bar is set lightyears away from what actual consumers need.

[zettabomb]

At no point did I say it's usable by the average, non-tech-inclined user. I said it's getting much better, quickly. It absolutely still needs work to replace something like Amazon or Google have.

[serial_dev]

I like your confidence in the competitors. Which ones do you recommend?

I need a timer, integration with smart home (turn things on and off), play songs and radio, I need to announce to my other devices. And the set up should not be a month long side project.

How much will it cost me to replace Alexa in at least 5 rooms...

[TeMPOraL]

Home Assistant. Sure, non-tech people might have an issue setting it up today (it's easy and getting easier, but it's not turn-key easy yet), but for you personally, this shouldn't be an issue.

Assuming you have a spare Raspberry Pi or some other compute you can dedicate to it, replacing Alexa in every aspect except the microphones is at most a couple hours of installing, configuring and testing stuff. I don't personally know how things are on the market with replacing the always-on microphones in every room, but ignoring that (let's assume for a moment you're fine with using either a phone or a smartwatch as voice I/O), you get:

- A better and more capable integration with smart home than anything on the market;

- A chance to pick whatever LLM you want to power your logic (just bring your own API key, ofc.), which instantly makes it much better than Google's Assistant, Siri and Alexa; this has been the case for around a year now, and the Big Companies are still playing catch-up with the simple "just feed it to GPT-4 / Claude along with some context and tools, and let it do what you want" approach.

- You can configure the activities whichever way you like, expose whichever smart devices you like, and you don't have to speak brands anymore. No more "Hey ${brand 1}, use ${brand 2} to play ${brand 3} on ${brand 4}" - you can just say "Please play whatever in the living room" and it just works.

(In my case, some of the most frequent commands are off-hand lines like "warm up the kids' room a bit, please", and "kill the ACs", or any variation that rolls off the tongue best. Claude knows what to do with zero config. Home Assistant alone cut the time to operate ACs from 2 minutes to 5 seconds (cold-start) relative to the vendor app; running things by voice from a watch is just a cherry on the cake.)

- If you're on Android, you can (and, again, could for around a year now) expose your phone to Home Assistant; setting the HA app as your assistant + coupling it with Tasker lets you also replicate the on-phone feature of commercial assistants, but better, because LLMs. It's smarter and sends less sensitive data to iffy cloud services (you control where STT and TTS happen).

- Timers and announcements and weather and such, you can obviously also handle through Home Assistant. The defaults should be enough for this (you might need to "add weather integration", "add timer integration", etc. - couple UI clicks in the UI, each). HA is simple by default, but you can also do more advanced stuff, at any complexity level between this and arbitrary code execution, through no-code, low-code (e.g. NodeRED) or yes-code means.

Going back to the topic of microphone arrays - I didn't look into it much; there are DIY solutions (with DIY quality of listening - which may be OK, depending on environment; almost 2 decades ago, I got a lot of mileage out of cheap microphone soldered to a 2M cable and glued to the side of the wardrobe, + Microsoft Speech API on the PC), I think I recall some people selling packaged microphone arrays, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could reuse Alexa hardware for the I/O part. But I honestly don't know. I'm fine with my phone and watch for I/O at the moment.

[mFixman]

The microphones and speakers are what I care about. Alexa is the perfect hands-off universal remote + podcast speaker.

Is there a way to flash the Echo hardware to make it work with Home Assistant without pinging Amazon HQ?

[davedx]

I mean this in a non snarky serious way: these things are a totally unnecessary luxury electronics item. Don’t buy one at all is also an option.

[timeon]

> Ohh wait, there are no competitors!

Sometimes winning move is not to play. If there are no competitors to this, just do not use anything.

[dominicrose]

Yes boycott is a solution. I don't need Amazon for anything except maybe to buy cheap off-brand toner, and honestly for the time toner can last I could've stayed with the brand.

[TZubiri]

Chill man. Just send back the product and ask for a refund.

[disattention]

This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. It's ok for people to feel things, and it's ok for people to want laws addressing anti-consumer behavior.

[robertlagrant]

> This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference.

None of these comments are fixing issues or trying to make a difference. Sending the product back is a really good idea, especially if this change in terms means you can get a refund even if you've had it a long time.

[disattention]

The reason I replied to the parent comment was because of their dismissive tone. Of course returning the product is a good idea, but telling reasonable people to "chill out", and dismissing their concerns by suggesting they "just XYZ" is truly unproductive. It ends the conversation rather than engaging with it.

[flawn]

Still not an argument against people being allowed to be mad regarding this. You just can't give a fuck about data privacy and expect people to not oppose this and speak up.

[robertlagrant]

> being allowed to be mad

No one can stop you being mad. No one's saying it's not allowed. It's possible someone is still young enough to misinterpret adult interactions as parental fiat, but it's not the case.

[unethical_ban]

"We should have a framework that prohibits companies from selling a product with a certain agreement, then changing the agreement unilaterally"

That isn't trying to make a difference? Excuse me? Read that back.

[TZubiri]

The framework already exists, it says to return the product and ask for a refund.

You can claim detrimental reliance though, but it's a stretch and bad faith imo. Try your luck with a judge and attorney fees

[63stack]

The framework that exists is crap and should be replaced with something where you as a consumer should not have to watch the eula changes like a hawk, and then the onus should not be on you as a consumer to do extra work to get refunded for a bait and switch.

[hightrix]

I tried, Amazon will not refund over this issue.

[_heimdall]

The car is no longer usable without the wheels, I believe the argument for Alexa would be that the core functionality is still usable without the privacy setting.

I don't see why we would need the FTC to fix this. If someone bought Alexa from Amazon and honestly expected it to be privacy focused, they just made a mistake and can learn from it. Problems don't always have to be solved by running to the biggest authority that can be found and demanding they solve it for you.

[A_D_E_P_T]

"Do not send voice recordings" back to Amazon HQ =/= "privacy focused." It's arguably a necessary feature for minimal privacy in one's home, and I expect that a lot of people bought those devices with that in mind.

If the FTC doesn't fix this kind of spontaneous downgrade, I'm not sure what they're for at all.

If somebody falls for a criminal's fraud, I suppose "they just made a mistake and can learn from it"? No need for anybody else, or any authority, to do anything?

[_heimdall]

Jumping to criminal fraud feels a bit hasty in this context. It'd be important to know whether Amazon ever marketed this feature specifically, promised privacy, defined what that privacy they promised meant, and whether there's any legal argument to be made that this setting should be considered core to the basic functionality of Alexa.

IMO no one should have ever expected Alexa, or products like it, to be private. The meet fact that it has a microphone, and potentially a camera, and promises to respond simply by you saying something to it means they're always listening. I don't really care what they say they'll do with the recordings, I care what they can do with the recordings without me ever knowing about it.