| One of the points they touch on is a "world where many things wont work and nobody will know how to fix them". As I understand it, we already live in this world. Some new cars dont come with dipsticks, and I cant look inside my iPhone. In the case of the car and the phone, they've added complexity (a service layer) and I think its worked out well. The user gets to do what users should do and businesses grow doing what they do best. When it comes to IoT, my first thoughts always drifts towards "will this make things better, or could we muck up what once "just worked"? We're entering a time where we have the technology, capital and reach to create and distribute new products and services at massive scale. Now that ideas are less constrained by "how", and compete on the "what", do we need to stop and ask ourselves not "Can we do it?", but "Should we do it?" We can see this in many disrupted industries now, where new ideas, innovation and competition have shook up traditional business models. Whats left in their wake is not always better than what preceded it. Ill use the social media ad driven business epoch as an example, was that a net positive for us as people? Or did we add a layer of complexity to the web that is now dedicated to delivering Upworthy blog posts, selling our personal information and a constant stream of Coca Cola ads? Is that a good trade off for pictures of Grandma, news from friends and Likes from everyone? Do we already evaluate technology on these terms, or has our current state driven us to cobble together any business model that works? |
The idea of removing user serviceable parts is tenable, but basically boils down to saving a sliver of people from shooting themselves in the foot while raising the total cost of ownership for everyone.
The problem with discussing this is that the technical mechanisms for making external service mandatory rather than common is that sometimes the reasoning isn't necessarily to enable a business model leveraging exclusive access. So measures taken to for that reason contort themselves to pretend like they're not that. They sneak it in alongside a chance that does bring me value but pretend like they're intrinsically linked, even when they're not.
A dipstick replaced by a computerized sensor to the in-dash readout, or iphones in a world where everyone who wants to fiddle around gets an android device are relatively benign examples.
I can do some car maintenance, but if I needed a new clutch I'd take it in to get serviced. The fact that my brother can and would replace his own clutch keeps costs down at the shop for me. The fact I can go to a mechanic not licensed by Ford keeps costs down. The fact I can buy off-brand parts for many simple service jobs keeps costs down.
My co-worker bought a replacement battery for his car but couldn't install it himself, it cost him 2 hours of service available only from the dealership to get the car's DRM switched to the new battery. I don't consider this state of affairs and trajectory we're on at large "working out well."