[kragen]

Is Microsoft Windows more like a Ford Pinto with an exploding gas tank, a Lada, or what? I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

The Takata airbags that inflated at random, killing 26 people, seem similarly harmful (if to a far smaller number of people), but that's an unintentional defect. Unlike the recent Windows 11 screw-tightening, Takata responded by recalling the product, not making it explode more frequently.

[advael]

From my experience riding in them and news reports I've read, any tesla fits the bill

Sadly, the most reliable signal american tech companies send is that they are primarily concerned with building a surveillance state. Whether this is for the US government or just their own fiefdoms (franchulates?) seems to vary a lot both within and between them, but neither prospect is particularly appealing to me as a prospective customer and/or target

[rusk]

> the most reliable signal american tech companies send is that they are primarily concerned with building a surveillance state

Sagacious point. With emphasising. This is how non-European web business look to everyone.

[cheschire]

Yep, Tesla was my first thought as well.

[JoshTriplett]

> I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

I've ridden in people's cars that are still displaying "agree to the terms of service"; I think a number of cars are starting to become far too much like computers.

[drob518]

As a wise man once said, “Anything + computer = computer.”

[degamad]

Those terms of service used to be "you should keep your eyes on the road, we are not responsible if you have a crash while playing with your satnav/entertainment system" and "you're responsible for where you drive, so we are not responsible if the satnav tells you to drive off a cliff or into a closed road".

But now that we've trained users that they'll need to click accept on the screen, we can sneak any conditions we want in there about how we collect and use their data...

[mc32]

>like a Ford Pinto with an exploding gas tank"

This bit of libel needs to be put to bed. The Pinto did not have a greater propensity to explode than other "in-class" cars and arguably had a better safety record than Beetles or Corollas of the time. Nader made himself a nice career of this libel, but it does not make it true. Of course, other cars didn't have a "memo" but that's beside the point.

[kragen]

There is unsurprisingly an extensive account at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...

[mc32]

"These works reviewed misunderstandings related to the actual number of fire-related deaths related to the fuel system design, "wild and unsupported claims asserted in Pinto Madness and elsewhere",[65] the facts of the related legal cases, Grimshaw vs Ford Motor Company and State of Indiana vs Ford Motor Company, the applicable safety standards at the time of design, and the nature of the NHTSA investigations and subsequent vehicle recalls.[66] One described the Grimshaw case as "mythical" due to several significant factual misconceptions and their effect on the public's understanding."

[fsckboy]

that Pinto Madness led to exaggerated claims does not mean that the Pinto was either safe or as safe as other cars, just that a car with an unsafe record had a worse reputation. The Pinto had a problem with its gas tank when it was rear ended. If you think other cars also had problems, feel free to name them. But that doesn't make the Pinto safe when it was rear ended, and it wasn't safe because the gas tank was in the rear and vulnerable.

[Aloha]

Various cars did (any of the vehicles with the gas tank mounted above the rear axle), some also had issues with side impact (GM square body trucks).

The 'crime' of the pinto was not that it was an unsafe car (it wasn't), it was that it could have been safer with a minimal (even by my standards, and I'm on the record as being opposed to mandatory backup cameras) increase in cost - that was why it grew the reputation, it was pure cost engineering (aka, cheapness - on the same level as the ignition switch failure issue GM had in the 2000's).

People died, a fair number of them - because Ford didn't want to spend an additional amount of money - less than 50USD in today's money - on a car that retailed for 15,000USD in todays money.

[mc32]

This is exactly right. The other ‘crime’ was that they conducted a cost analysis and put a money value of a life and decided doing nothing was the financially better option _and_ they had a record of this. People found that unpalatable.

[ur-whale]

> I can't think of any car that's ever been sold whose design was optimized to spy on its users and trick them into buying to things and agreeing to contracts they didn't want.

Just give it a couple of years.

[rusk]

Windows Vista had suicide doors