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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the gone-with-the-wind dept.

https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/06/30/do-we-really-own-our-digital-possessions/

During 2019, Microsoft announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:01PM (32 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:01PM (#1015096) Journal

    Add in what should be durable goods that fail shortly after the warranty and have been made as close to impossible to repair as they can be.

    All the downsides of Communism with none of the upside.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday July 01 2020, @08:50PM (27 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @08:50PM (#1015142)

    Add in what should be durable goods that fail shortly after the warranty and have been made as close to impossible to repair as they can be.

    People keep talking about this stuff, but honestly I haven't seen any good examples of this. Do you have any? I've repaired durable goods, such as washing machines, in the not-so-distant past. A lot of times, you can get repair parts fairly cheaply on Amazon or Ebay, which frequently but not always are aftermarket (made in China, just like the factory parts). There's even YouTube videos showing how to do many common repair procedures for appliances.

    The problem isn't that these things are hard to repair (they're really not, in my experience; you just need some basic tools), or that the parts are hard to get (they're not, thanks to the internet). The problem is that Americans these days are stupid and lazy and can't figure out how to use a screwdriver, even when someone makes a YouTube video showing them exactly how, and insist on paying a "professional" to do simple stuff for them. But these people have very high hourly labor rates, so the cost of repairing the appliance ends up being about as much as just tossing it and buying a newer one that's nicer, cleaner, has more features, and is more efficient.

    In the "old days", it used to be that manufactured goods were relatively expensive (because manufacturing wasn't very efficient), and local labor costs were low, so it made sense to repair things instead of replacing them. That's turned around now: manufacturing is hyper-efficient, coupled with lower labor rates in the countries where the factories are located (but those labor rates aren't *that* much lower any more BTW), and local labor rates are ridiculous because rents have gone up so much, so it doesn't make sense to repair anything if you can't DIY.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday July 01 2020, @09:29PM (7 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @09:29PM (#1015160) Journal

      I have tried to repair many many things, but modern stuff is designed to be thrown away, from the moment the designer starts thinking about it...

      Some experiences from the recent past:

      1. washing machine - 8 years old. Failure on main board, main board no longer manufactured. To remove panel, break plastic one way lugs (mushroom shaped force fit). So can't replace broken part, and can't put it back together even if you could get the part

      2. house intercom/doorbell. 15 years old, so has lots of screws, come apart, but has machine soldered tiny parts - how many hours with an oscilloscope to find the broken/burned out part?

      3. toy remote control car - one wheel broke - whole axle/bearing assembly is a single moulded lump.. no amount of special glue can reinstate the required structural integrity.

      4. plastic insert/cover on vegetable drawers in fridge. Thin plastic. floppy. Small, shaped clips hold it in. Removing the try to clean it breaks the clips. Tray now falls down and jams drawers.. Clips cannot be purchased. Making your own is... interesting (too strong and the can't be pushed into place, to week and they don't support the tray)..

      Why make it last 40 years, when you can get a new sale when it breaks after 5..

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @02:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @02:56PM (#1015413)

        That's a happy side effect. The main reason why they go through models so quickly is that it makes it impossible to properly research the item you're looking to buy. By the time the major issues are known and posted, they're just about ready to discontinue the model for a new one that's only slightly different and may or may not have the same set of issues.

        Forcing people to buy a new one because there aren't any parts available is just a happy side effect for the manufacturers. In most cases, there's little stopping them from reusing parts in newer models other than their desire to sell a new product rather than have you fix the one you've got.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:29PM (5 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:29PM (#1015500)

        The other side to this is: how much did you pay for these things? Would you be willing to pay 3-5x as much for something designed to last longer, and be more repairable? Most consumers aren't willing to pay 1.2x as much for something better, so manufacturers are giving them what they want.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 03 2020, @02:19AM (4 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Friday July 03 2020, @02:19AM (#1015633) Journal

          The thing is, many of the sins we're talking about couldn't have even saved 1%. Some even cost more than doing it right. People buy only the cheapest because most of the time, the more expensive turns out the be the cheapest with a shinier badge tacked on it.

          If you're going to be ripped off, you might as well be ripped off for as little as possible.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 03 2020, @03:57PM (3 children)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday July 03 2020, @03:57PM (#1015777)

            Yeah, so you have expensive stuff that's just overpriced junk, and you have expensive stuff that's better than the cheapest junk. How are consumers supposed to know the difference? Doing research only goes so far; I've seen tons of product reviews for things giving them 5 stars, from people who've only used the product a short time, and then a few poor reviews from people who've had it longer. It's like this XKCD comic [xkcd.com]. Lots of great reviews doesn't mean the product is actually good, or lasts a long time. I imagine a lot of people just gave up and go for the cheapest after being burned.

            Also, there's the issue that a lot of people don't *want* to keep things a lot time. What's the point of paying extra for something that'll last 40 years if you don't plan on keeping it more than 5? Especially when newer items will likely be more efficient, have better features, etc.?

            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday July 05 2020, @07:12PM (2 children)

              by sjames (2882) on Sunday July 05 2020, @07:12PM (#1016589) Journal

              Exactly. Then there's the constant churn. By the time a model has been on the market long enough for the first buyers to realize it fails way too soon, that model is replaced by a nearly identical model )that's probably built even more poorly) and so the later (all bad) reviews of the old model just disappear as "moot".

              When good products lifespans exceed the owner's needs, they sell it on. That only works if there is good reason to believe the thing that should last 20-40 years isn't on it's last leg after 5. It keeps waste out of the landfill and allows people who are less well off to afford what they need.

              • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday July 06 2020, @08:50PM (1 child)

                by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday July 06 2020, @08:50PM (#1017308)

                When good products lifespans exceed the owner's needs, they sell it on. That only works if there is good reason to believe the thing that should last 20-40 years isn't on it's last leg after 5. It keeps waste out of the landfill and allows people who are less well off to afford what they need.

                I think part of the problem here is that people just don't expect to get much money from (for instance, ~10 year old) used appliances in a secondhand sale. It's not like a car, where you do want your car to last 30 years so you can drive it for 5-10 years, then resell it for thousands of dollars to someone else. People just don't seem to expect that with appliances; when they buy a new one because the old one is ugly/dated-looking, or making some noises and not worth repairing because it's ugly or doesn't have newer features, they just get the new one delivered and the old one is taken away by the delivery people. In reality, it does seem like a lot of these end up going to places that repair them and resell them as refurbished, but this probably depends on the model. If you check out Craigslist, you can find people reselling refurbished appliances, so they are out there. But unlike cars where it's pretty common to either resell your car yourself, or to do a "trade-in" (which doesn't usually net quite as much resale value), there's just no such thing for appliances that I've ever heard of, nor have I ever heard of this (and I'm old enough to remember appliances lasting more than 3 years).

                • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 13 2020, @10:37PM

                  by sjames (2882) on Monday July 13 2020, @10:37PM (#1020789) Journal

                  It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. People don't get much for used appliances because due to 'value engineering' potential buyers know they're more likely to be used up.

                  Sort of like the perceived value of a used car in the '70s with 150,000 miles on it, the general advice was just drive it into the ground then scrap it. By comparison, today, SOME makes have an actual resale value at 150,000 miles.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @12:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @12:47AM (#1015223)

      Good timing--just DIY fixed the house A/C. It's been trouble every spring since we had it installed about 10 years ago, including leaks, motor jam, on and on. First year or two on warranty & I was watching what they did.

      This time the circulator fan had been working fine, then one cycle it didn't run, we all wondered why we were drooping, turned out it was several degrees above the setpoint. Remembered that it has a 3 speed motor (pick the terminal), so I pulled out the motor in the attic unit, moved the connector and...so far so good. The acid test will be to see if it starts again the next time the thermostat calls for cool.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:52AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:52AM (#1015240)

      My parents upgraded to a high efficiency furnace a while back. The circulation fan squeals when it runs because the bearings have gone dry. The bearings and motor are inside a molded plastic shell that can't be opened without destroying it to prevent any kind of maintenance. Instead, the entire fan assembly must be replaced for several hundred dollars when a few drops of oil would solve the problem. The old furnace ran for over forty years without trouble due to basic preventative maintenance and probably had another forty left in it when it was replaced. I doubt the new one will last much more than ten because any kind of basic maintenance is impossible.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:12PM (#1015376)

        What brand of high efficiency furnace is that? I'm due for a new furnace and would like to avoid that brand!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:17PM (#1015415)

        Possibly, or they sealed it to prolong the period before the lubrication runs out. Honestly, not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes things get sealed for legitimate reasons.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @04:48AM (13 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 02 2020, @04:48AM (#1015281) Journal

      Try to get parts for an Apple some time (yes, a computer SHOULD be a durable good). Newer appliances now need a particular board to make them run. Not like the old days when you could swap out a timer or even repair the old one. A digital control board SHOULD last a lot longer than a mechanical sequencer, but they don't.

      I am quite familiar with appliance and automotive repair.

      Agreed about the cost of having someone else repair and about rent and mortgage. The outrageous cost of just treading water is a gigantic weight dragging our standard of living slowly down.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @05:09AM (6 children)

        by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @05:09AM (#1015284) Homepage

        The first time I ran into Expensive-Unrepairable was in fact an Apple desktop computer (Mac System 8 era). Fan died in the power supply and it was overheating. So I arrive, tools and replacement fan in hand, and discover that the whole assembly was RIVETED together such that there was no way to get it apart, short of a chainsaw. Owner settled for leaving the case open and a desk fan aimed at the innards.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:04AM (3 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:04AM (#1015298) Journal

          I ran into a not quite so expensive but more egregious example. A VCR with some probably minor mechanical failure so that it didn't correctly load/unload a tape. I took the cover off and tried to put it through it's motions to see what looked wrong, and damned if it didn't have a hidden light sensor to detect the cover off condition and perform a PLANNED malfunction so I couldn't see how it was supposed to work!

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:08AM (2 children)

            by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:08AM (#1015317) Homepage

            Holy crap! the Mac was just poor design -- didn't look so much nyah-nyah-try-and-fix-this as what's the fastest and cheapest way to fasten it? (whole thing was made cheap as could be) but that VCR... yeah, that's just evil!!

            Oh, speaking of evil... a tale I was told from back when software ran off floppy disks: if dBase (then thousands of dollars) thought you were making a move to pirate it, it would erase itself. And doing something like accidentally removing the wrong disk or in the wrong order would trigger it (I forget the details but it was way too easy to do by accident). Someone at a friend's former work managed to set it off... ouch.

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @09:26PM (1 child)

              by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 02 2020, @09:26PM (#1015529) Journal

              Yeah, that dBase copy prevention was way over the line. Active and possibly irreversible retribution triggered by a hyper sensitive tilt switch.

              DRM and other copy prevention is necessarily against any principle of robust software. Rather than trying to find a way to go on and just dealing with probably harmless quirks, DRM and copy prevention actively look for a reason to hard fail. Imagine if going to a 404 page caused the browser to just exit without saving state.

              • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @10:31PM

                by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @10:31PM (#1015553) Homepage

                Good analogy!

                --
                And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:15PM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:15PM (#1015493)

          You couldn't drill the rivets? That's the normal way to remove them.

          I bought an expensive aluminum tower chassis many, many years ago, and it got damaged in shipping. I got a refund I think from the shipping company, so I had a free but dented case; it was made of aluminum panels riveted together, so I drilled out the rivets, took it apart, bent/flattened the aluminum back into shape, then riveted it back together, and it was pretty much good as new.

          Rivets are certainly not as easy to remove as screws, but it's not impossible.

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:33PM

            by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:33PM (#1015518) Homepage

            I thought about it, but there were about a dozen (and the thing was layered together so you couldn't even reach some of 'em) and sadly I lack a drill capable of going around corners into very small cracks. Wasn't worth the pretty good chance of hitting something vital; owner said never mind, I'll just use a desk fan, and so it went until the thing died entirely a couple years later.

            If it were mine, yeah, I'd probably have completely dysmangled it and made it so it came apart gracefully whether it liked it or not. Or, why I don't like creatively tight packing when stuff might need to come out. (Of course, Apple and repairs...)

            Good story about your case -- well worth the effort!

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:20PM (5 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:20PM (#1015495)

        Try to get parts for an Apple some time (yes, a computer SHOULD be a durable good).

        Apples aren't durable goods, they're luxury items. Are you going to complain about getting spare parts for a Bugatti car or a Coach handbag? When you buy an Apple, any repairs need to be done by Apple themselves, not by you or third-party companies. Honestly, complaining about this is silly. I've have no trouble getting spare parts for my Dell laptops.

        Newer appliances now need a particular board to make them run. Not like the old days when you could swap out a timer or even repair the old one. A digital control board SHOULD last a lot longer than a mechanical sequencer, but they don't.

        You can repair circuit boards too. This complaint just comes from people who don't understand electronics and whine that it isn't as easy as something mechanical. Circuit boards rarely fail, and when they do, the problem is usually cheap electrolytic capacitors. The other problem is usually cold solder joints.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:35PM

          by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:35PM (#1015519) Homepage

          "Apples aren't durable goods, they're luxury items."

          Exactly!!

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:39PM (3 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:39PM (#1015521) Journal

          Apple is not a luxury good. I said computers SHOULD be durable goods. The comparison with Bugatti is a bit extreme. How many Bugattis do you see in the parking lots compared to how many iPhones and MacBooks you see around?

          I understand electronics just fine. I have designed circuit boards and I have repaired them. There's no excuse for them not outliving a clockwork sequencer by a factor of 10. I note that the tools needed to repair a board do go a bit outside of the set of basic tools every household should have and be familiar with.

          When you can get a replacement board, they charge outrageous prices for them. You could almost get a CM to make you a one-off for that price, but you'd still need to get the firmware from somewhere.

          You can see the transition happening in some areas. Some gas water heaters have a safety sensor that detects when the burner fails to shut down and trips to shut it down. Once repaired, you press a reset button. Others have a one time "TRD" that breaks when overheated (or it gets old) and it blocks the air inlets smothering the burner out (leaving unburned gas spewing from the burner).

          The most typical approach today is to use "value engineering" to get the marginal cost of production down followed by "value pricing" to make sure the savings stay in the manufacturer's pocket.

          Dell has gotten better about repairability lately, but there was that era where if you swapped in a non-Dell power supply, it would blow the mainboard because they swapped 3 or 4 pins in the otherwise standard ATX connector.

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 02 2020, @10:39PM (2 children)

            by Reziac (2489) on Thursday July 02 2020, @10:39PM (#1015558) Homepage

            Yeah, I remember the horror stories about Dell vs normal PSUs. It's a good deal of why my ...uh, computer museum... has but one older Dell, and it was amenable to normal parts. Tho I still recall the argument I had with a fan-of-Dell... someone sent me a top-of-the-line Dell because he was tired of fighting with its constant overheating just from admiring its navel. I took one look inside, dumped the shroud and the teeny tiny fanless heatsink, gave it a normal heatsink with a normal fan, and its operating temperature dropped *40F* degrees. Anyway the fan-of-Dell was horrified because surely they design 'em for best airflow and you'll ruin it! Um, which part of no-longer-overheating did you not understand??

            The newer ones, tho... pretty much interchangeable everything, at least for the normal form factors. Which is probably nowadays the cheaper way to build 'em.

            Um... how is that behavior by gas water heaters not an explosion hazard??!

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Friday July 03 2020, @02:14AM (1 child)

              by sjames (2882) on Friday July 03 2020, @02:14AM (#1015630) Journal

              Um... how is that behavior by gas water heaters not an explosion hazard??!

              That's a damned good question! The theory is that once the flame is out, the thermopile will cool and shut down the gas valve. My preference is the resettable overheat switches that directly disconnect the thermopile from the valve. At least with that, if the valve itself is stuck, the gas will be burned off rather than building up.

              The saga of fixing my water heater under warranty is a sad one. It did eventually get fixed, but only because I did the diagnosis myself and did a little social hacking.

              • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 03 2020, @02:19AM

                by Reziac (2489) on Friday July 03 2020, @02:19AM (#1015632) Homepage

                Good thinking... why are you not a designer of gas appliances? :)

                We just put a new gas water heater in the rental house... I hope it does not have any of these weird newfangled ideas....

                And yeah, *resettable* not one time and dead!

                --
                And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:20PM (#1015378)

      For cars in particular, my mechanic can replace any of the un-computerized parts. But for anything involving the system computer, he needs to use special software to interface with it and the software varies for each major manufacturer. For some of the manufacturers, third party products that are reverse engineered versions of the manufacturer software are available. Very few of the manufacturers make the software available for free. Without it, you can't fix certain classes of problems. Every few years some of the automakers try to lock third parties out of accessing their vehicle software at all in some states, and independent repair shops in the US actually have a lobbying body that works with state legislatures to protect right-to-repair.

      There is the relatively famous case of John Deere tractors, and John Deere's attempts to make it illegal to repair them unless you're an authorized repair service. See https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware [vice.com]

      And I think the biggest example of planned obsolescence is smart phones. Eight years ago lots of smart phones were getting high ratings for ease-of-repair by third parties. Now most of them are getting low ratings. For the phones and tablets my wife and I have tried to repair ourselves, we've had a decent success rate with the tablets and a terrible one with the phones. If the Fairphone products supported the LTE bands in the US we would get one.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:30PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:30PM (#1015175)

    All the downsides of Communism with none of the upside.

    How is that communism? I'm not trolling here. I honestly don't get it.

    How can corporations using their *market power* to sell poor quality/planned-in obsolescent products and provide poor customer service without interference from the government be termed anything even close to Communism?

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:39PM (1 child)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:39PM (#1015177) Journal

      He's not saying that it *is* Communism, just that it's instituted all the bad features of same, without copying any (unspecified) good ones.

      I don't really agree with him either, but monopolies are not good, even when only of a very minor thing like the drawer of a refrigerator.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:52PM (#1015182)

        He's not saying that it *is* Communism, just that it's instituted all the bad features of same, without copying any (unspecified) good ones.

        Which features? That's the part I don't get. As far as I can tell, it's (broken/distorted) capitalism, at its worst, all the way down -- Communism is just being used as a trope in an attempt to paint anything bad as being a result of actions by an out group [wikipedia.org] and not an issue which should be addressed, IMHO.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @06:24AM

      by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 02 2020, @06:24AM (#1015294) Journal

      By leaving you with no effective actual ownership of anything. You don't own your e-books, you don't own your OS (unless you give the corporate world the slip and install Linux of *BSD). Your major appliances are more akin to a long term rental. In many cases, functionality will appear, disappear, or change at the actual owner's whim, you just rented the thing.

      So there we are, "Imagine no possessions...."

      It's not actually Communism, it's just the downside.