zlacker

>>kotaKa+(OP)
Every day we stray farther from the premise that we should be allowed to install / modify software on the computers we own.

Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access

>>medhir+Lg1
The question really isn't whether we should be able to modify computers we own, its whether we own them at all.

>>_heimd+Cj1
regardless of what the corporations say we do own the devices we purchase.

>>yesbut+Ak1
Not always. There have been car manufacturers that sold vehicles with features only enabled by a subscription. You may buy a car with heated seats, but the heated seats only work if the manufacturer enables them.

>>_heimd+Nl1
Am I the only one that found that to be a reasonable edge case?

The seat heating was apparently shortening the life of the leather seats. Its cheaper to include heated seats in all cars, than it is to maintain 2 different sets of production. The subscription basically offsets the cost of needing to replace the seats more frequently when the heating is enabled.

Likewise, if you manually enabled the seat heaters, then complained that the seats were falling apart quickly, having given you a legal out to get that feature enabled in warranty, would not have to replace your seats for free.

Not to mention, they apparently already ditched the subscription over backlash.