> "It won't be particularly satisfying, but in that dystopian near-future, it will be one of life's few remaining pleasures."
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Seriously though, we're already filtering Facebook posts based on "relevance". We're a really, really thin line away from silencing posts based on the sentiments expressed within.
...the internet of things that you do not really own or have any control over anymore.
This is just a step away from e.g. toasters that won't toast anything but "authorised" bread (packaged in cartridges for "convenience", I'm sure...) A lot of this vendor lock-in has already been happening in the computing industry with things like printer cartridges, but as more and more appliances become "smarter" the incremental implementation costs of lock-in decrease so it becomes more widespread.
On the other hand the saying "when there's a will, there's a way" fortunately continues to apply, so we see "breakthroughs" like this. However, the frightening part is that this will no doubt be considered a "flaw" or "security breach" by some, so the systems gradually become more secure over time, and sadly this is security against the users. I could imagine this easily escalating into use of cryptography, which might then result in firmware hacking, countered by even stronger cryptography (e.g. signed firmware updates), leading to hardware hacking, stronger antitamper hardware, etc.
I think it is fantastic. Companies lately are moving toward profits over customer loyalty, which seems counter-intuitive. Keurig et al need to learn a lesson from this and stop the silly non-sense. They have already cornered the at-home brewing market (or close to it I would assume) and personally have never seen a non-Keurig branded K-cup that they are so worried about. There is no need to get greedy.