[lucb1e]

Isn't the story that some gaming consoles were sold at or under cost price and the markup was on the game sales? I don't know if it's fair to require that needs to be unlocked

Yet I 100% agree on a generic computing device and they're not really that different in the end. Maybe that it needs to be unlockable after it has been on the market for 4 years or so (all units, no matter when they were sold, no matter if support ended)

Or maybe undercutting the competition like this to make it back later on games is not a profit model we should want? And that everything should just be unlockable insofar as it has X amount of memory, CPU power, capable of doing IP traffic... something like that. (Seems silly to require a firmware unlock on your toaster)

[LastTrain]

> I don't know if it's fair to require that needs to be unlocked

Sure it’s fair, and manufacturers could price accordingly. Legally enforceable is another story.

[GTP]

> Isn't the story that some gaming consoles were sold at or under cost price and the markup was on the game sales?

Yes, but I'm confident Android smartphones aren't. Maybe Google is an exception here, but all the other manufacturers profit mostly from the hardware and not from the Apps. Samsung has its own app store, but I think only a tiny minority of users spend money there.

[lucb1e]

True, though any regulation would (at least ideally) be generic about computing devices

[IsTom]

> were sold at or under cost price and the markup was on the game sales?

To be honest that has always had a smell to me akin to dumping.

[627467]

Differences between dumping and "loss leader"?

[izacus]

Consoles haven't been sold with a loss for generations, please stop repeating that to support DRM.

[lucb1e]

Didn't know that, thanks for the correction!

[croes]

the requirement could be when the hardware reaches EOL unlock the bootloader

[lucb1e]

Also for microwaves and dishwashers? That's more the problem I struggle to solve: how to differentiate things that you want to run your own OS on from the things that it would be historically silly to have to provide connectivity and unlocking interfaces for

(On the other hand, our stupid 2026 dishwasher has no flushing program and leaves a ton of residue on the dishes. The 2001 model we inherited from the landlord was perfect, barely used any more power or water but the dishes were actually dry at the end and you could eat from them without ingesting detergent. I wouldn't mind inserting a little rinse cycle in the eco program if there were some documented way of talking to the chip, then for drying we can just let them sit in the opened machine for the remaining 20 hours of the day. Alas. Maybe I should want open source everything!)

Also, what's EOL? When it goes out of warranty after 2 years?