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Comment by alkaline9 | Hacker News Reader

No, it is asking people to design and test systems for the long-term. It would require establishing strong interfaces between components that will hold up when subcomponents are swapped out.

I think of it like a car where parts can be replaced if those parts have an issue, but the designs of the connectors stays the same, and replacements are available. A 100-year car isn't one that requires no maintenance for 100 years; it is one that can be maintained, and replacement parts can be acquired, and it will still continue working.

If a car depends on a remote server, such that the car stops operating when the remote server is shut down, then that car is perishable.

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There are a lot of cars that were maintainable, and built to be maintained, that can’t be maintained anymore simply because the manufacturer went defunct and there are no more parts (e.g. Saab, Datsun) or because the cost of manufacturing more parts for a car with a dwindling owner-base began to outweigh the profit, and thus, there are no more parts (e.g. older Ford models).

Unless the car is built primarily with 3rd-party parts (from manufacturers like Bosch, Brembo, etc) - which is something that consumers usually hold against a car, like how many people are upset that the new Toyota Supra is actually a BMW - then the problem is almost completely analogous to the shutting down of remote servers; if the manufacturer goes defunct or can no longer make a profit by continuing service, the car’s life has perished.

And in fact, the only way to avoid this is super conglomerates and monopolies - Lamborghini parts should always be available, because they come from the Audi parts bin, which comes from the Volkswagen parts bin.

In the past aftermarket parts makers came in to support popular cars after OEMs retired replacement part making for older model cars. Now if you so much as breathe on an aftermarket mod for your brand new software driven EV ( I won't name names here of course but you know who), the manufacturer may brick your car, or worse yet declare your warranty and/or any future support null & void.

My 2017 Volvo XC 90 somehow begins to casually malfunction whenever I drive it beyond a few service warnings. The car is HEAVILY software dependent. It can technically drive itself and park itself too. This behavior somehow disappears once the dealer performs software updates. It's pretty strange, and I worry it's a ticking time bomb for when I reach the end of my warranty on the car.

I am definitely against the newest measures taken by car companies, e.g. Porsche completely covering the engine (and voiding warranty should you access it) save the oil reservoir, on the newest 911s.

There is also something missing from my metaphor which is that even when the parts no longer exist, the car can still continue to run until it breaks down, rather than being remotely killed due to an external signal separated from the car itself (e.g. servers shutting down and triggering some switch in the code).

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