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Comment by akerl_ | Hacker News Reader

Why? Like I get why as a purchaser of things I would want to be able to downgrade, but under what premise is it desirable that the government should mandate how companies design and sell products?

This makes far more sense to me if the pitch is that companies must include clear terms for consumers about how they’ll handle software / what the hardware will allow the user to do in terms of software downgrades. That has precedent as an extension of truthful advertising / consumer protection.

But if a company says “we’re selling the Widget 9000, it updates it’s firmware automatically and irreversibly”, I don’t see a coherent reason for the government to say “no, you can’t sell that”. If people don’t want to pay for gear that behaves in that way, they’re free to not buy it.

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> but under what premise is it desirable that the government should mandate how companies design and sell products?

The Government already does this and with great success, the ban on lead additives in paint would be one example. By that point, it's harmful effects were already known as early as 1786 (efforts to ban lead paint began around 1921) before it's ban in 1976 (US).

Perhaps the free market just needed more time?

Without government intervention, somehow I suspect we would still see lead paint continue to be bought and sold. I cannot imagine the unthinkable number of individuals that were fucked over through no fault of their own (learning disabilities, poor health, shortened lifespan) because we chose to continue to allow lead paint to be sold on the market.

> I don’t see a coherent reason for the government to say “no, you can’t sell that”.

What about the environment? By artificially reducing the lifespan of these devices, you're sending them to an early grave only to be unnecessarily replaced by a new device because the corporate overlords demand it.

It's unnecessary churn and I'm not sure that we should demand that future generations carry the burden of our poor choices simply because we would prefer to wait until the free market fixes this mess (which may never happen). How long will that take? 10 years? More?

OS updates extend the lifetime of a device, not reduce it.

Another great example is fuel economy standards - the government says "no you cannot sell a car that has fewer than X mpg after the year Y" and it has done wonders for our energy policy despite the government doing what they can to keep gas prices down.

> OS updates extend the lifetime of a device, not reduce it.

They can extend the lifetime. They can also reduce it either by slowing things down to the point of becoming unusable or by preventing certain use cases - for example have you heard that the Nintendo Switch updates prevent subsequent downgrades in order to prevent users from making full use of the hardware by running custom/modded games?

How is provividing updates reducing the lifespan ofa device? Usually not having long term support of a device including security patches is seen as reducing the lifespan.

> How is provividing updates reducing the lifespan ofa device?

Nobody claims it does.

If a manufacturer goes out of business ot decides to stop providing updates, you can be stuck with a piece of junk if you don't control your device. If a device is designed to only allow automatic updates direct from the manufacturer and you have no control over the version of software your device runs, your perfectly functional hardware can become a useless piece of junk. Since updates often further lock devices down to make it harder run your own software, being unable to revert older versions of the software on your device can directly prevent you from being able to modify your device to make it functional.

This is all not just idle speculation, it happens all the time.

They’re referring to

> By artificially reducing the lifespan of these devices,

An iPhone 6S will run iOS 15, and if you throw a new battery in it it’ll run like new for almost all tasks, with the only caveat possibly being reduced NAND capacity/slower FS performance.

Yes, and nowhere in the paragraph or comment you pulled that quote from does it claim that providing updates reduces the lifespan of the device.

I clearly explained how aspects of how updates are handled can reduce device lifespan.

Apple has issues, but the length of time they support their devices is pretty good. It would be even better if they hadn't spent lots of time working to prevent devices older than the 6s from running any software not approved by apple.

As a counter example look at how Sonos handled the S1 to S2 transition. Deliberately bricking functional devices to reduce the second hand market. Not only discontuing updates to S1 speakers that had been bought new only a few years before, but also blocking updates to any S2 devices on the same network as a S1 device. Both of these policies were adjusted afterwards only after they garnered bad publicity and sparked a public outcry.

Sorry, that's what I meant to say.

Lead paint has externalities that affect people other than the purchaser. What externalities does a Nintendo Switch not allowing firmware downgrades have?

> under what premise is it desirable that the government should mandate how companies design and sell products?

The premise that benefits individuals and society.

The government already mandates how companies design and sell products. This isn't a radical concept. The reason cars get safer and cleaner every year is due to government regulation. The reason that instant coffee cannot be more than 50% bugs and twigs is government regulation.

> If people don’t want to pay for gear that behaves in that way, they’re free to not buy it.

Or we could just regulate it and then this consumer-hostile issue wouldn't exist.

> Or we could just regulate it and then this consumer-hostile issue wouldn't exist.

But I specifically want a device that only runs code from another company. Why should the government say “only enterprises can establish this absolute security trust relationship with their hardware vendor”?

If changing this permission requires root access then malware can only access it after they have obtained root access to your machine basically after you have already lost.

It this seems too insecure one could gate such a feature behind a physical switch on the device.

If this is indeed still not secure enough one could require a physical switch AND a password or token ensuring that the person physically holding the device can still be restricted by the owner in case the two aren't one in the same while providing all owners absolute privilege on their own hardware.

Secure boot works fine on PCs -- it's not all or nothing.

Cars and coffee are regulated in ways that improve health and safety. What is the health and safety impact of not being able to run homebrew on my Nintendo Wii?

What about environmental and first-sale issues? I have a piece of hardware tied to a company that went out business and it no longer functions. So I'm both deprived of my device and it's now e-waste.

Apple preventing repairs? John Deere preventing repairs? These have real-world impacts.

maybe company can stop people's device will influence their monkey?

> I get why as a purchaser of things I would want to <...>

That's actually all you need to say. Anything else is pro-corporate bullshit that you've been spoonfed until you regurgitate it.

The rebuttal to the rest of your comment is "just try and buy a TV that isn't actively hostile to the user". But that's a side conversation, the fundamental reality is that companies are legal fiction that don't have rights. They are allowed certain privileges we grant them, and we should not grant them the ability to screw over people that don't understand what the term firmware means.

I’d appreciate it if you’d not speculate as to my state of mind.

I as a purchaser want all kinds of things; this doesn’t mean that I want the government to mandate that companies give them to me. In part that’s because the people who run and work at businesses also have free agency, and in part it’s because I don’t believe that government interference in commerce is a viable approach to getting what I want in the long term.

People who don't know what firmware is don't care about this. Even people who do don't care. I showed this to my brother who is both a switch owner and works in tech. He didn't care. If the device works and lets them play pokemon they're content. Depressing but it's the truth.

I don't see what corporate personhood has to do with that the parent comment. They are asking if government restrictions on how Nintendo makes their product 'tamperproof' are desirable. We would have to answer the same question even if we removed 'the legal fiction of corporation' and only allowed partnerships and sole traders.

You can, they are just a lot more expensive. The hostile features are a revenue stream and subsidize the cost of the product. Apparently a lot of users are okay with that.

No, most users don't know. The frog was so well boiled it didn't even notice the water getting warm. The problem is that now things are what they are, changing them back is a behemoth effort without any motivation for those who could make it happen.

If part of your premise is that the majority of users has been tricked, you may want to consider the possibility that they just have different priorities than you.

You are oversimplifying things. It sort of overlaps some of the vaccine requirement arguments or perhaps laws that require you lock up your guns. Not updating devices that are connected to the net can and does lead to vulnerabilities that allow huge botnets to be created and deployed against anyone else on the network.

I say do what you want with your equipment if it isn't connected to the web. But if it is, you need to have some responsibility for it being used to harm others.

> companies are legal fiction that don't have rights.

Companies are quite literally legal persons and have the same rights as any natural-born citizen. It’d be a violation of a natural person’s rights if you forbade them from exercising those rights with others, companies only simplify the legal side of asset ownership and taxes.

Virtually everything you own that was sold in the US had a wide variety of terms set by the US government on your behalf on how it was constructed, advertised, and sold. The question was never if the government should set terms it is what terms.

You are also somehow envisioning the government as a separate entity having no relationship to the people as a whole that instead of literally already setting the entire ground rules in which our society exists somehow needs a very high bar to justify any interference whatsoever.

The government is all of us and the only justification it requires is the people's interests. 99.999% of people aren't chicken farmers so if they demand cleaner chicken farms so the chicken they eat are less likely to give them the shits then cleaner farms it is and those who who don't like it can situate their farms somewhere else.

99.999% of people aren't Nintendo executives so if the people are smart enough to demand hardware they actually own then Nintendo is free to exit the entire US market.

Pray we don't alter the deal further.

I can’t speak for other governments, but the US governments (both federal and state) derive their authority and their limitations from their contract with the people. You’d be hard pressed to find a constitutional scholar who believes the US Constitution stretches to grant the US government any power that it determines is in the people’s interests.

Notably, one of the most fundamental principles of US government is specifically the notion that the majority, even a supermajority, can’t infringe on the rights of a minority. We’ve screwed this up in plenty of cases, but that doesn’t suggest that the underlying goal is invalid and we should steer into the skid.

There is no right to unrestricted commerce. In many cases new restrictions don't even need new laws just new regulations drafted by bureaucracs defined in existing laws.

You seem to believe that one must reach backwards to the constitution in order to justify any new restrictions on your freedoms in a nation where we have happily redefined commerce within a state as subject to regulation based on the commerce clause. Let alone the general welfare clause.

In fact powers are so broadly construed that the only barrier is enumeration of a restriction in federal law and non violation of fundamental rights.

You have no more fundamental right to sell a locked down device than to build a store without proper fire exits. We didn't need to wait for fire exits to be built and vote with our feet.

How could I not have a right to sell a locked down device? Even Stallman doesn’t question the right of manufacturers to provide closed source / non-user-modifiable software on devices that operate as appliances. My alarm clock runs code to manage the menus / configure alarms / change brightness, but it’s implausible to suggest it’s illegal for the manufacturer to have built a locked down device.

People in this comment page keep drawing parallels between “a hardware device whose software I cannot modify” and things like fire code / health and safety laws. If you think there’s actually a line connecting those, draw it. I’m not seeing it.

You couldn't sell a lock down device if we the people tell you that you can't sell a locked down device the same as you can trivially be told that you can't knock down a tree or bulldoze a wetland or build whatever you please where you please even if you own the land or hire someone for less than minimum wage or employ a minor after certain hours in such and such a city or state or any one of a million other things.

You can argue until you are blue in the face that you don't think such a law is needed or a public good but I fail utterly to understand why you think it would be illegal.

Let’s say that the US congress decided that Nintendo games needed to be shipped on mini DVDs. No game carts or usb drives or other form factors would do. So they passed a law saying that Nintendo must switch all their consoles to use mini DVDs.

Is such a law constitutional?

You can't target a singular entity for punishment in law see bill of attainder. Suppose the law was that game consoles provide software on mini dvd how would that silly example pass muster as far as providing for the general welfare? How are mini dvds better for the public than usbs?

It's ridiculously broad but not infinitely broad. It's fairly trivial to suggest that allowing users full control of their own devices serves their interests.

A deliberately silly idea is liable to fail to hit the mark as far as the point. What if it was made a law that one must wear clown masks in the grocery store or all paint your nails before appearing in public?

The problem is when an upgrade limits or removes features from the time of first purchase - it's akin to changing the terms of an agreement after signing it.

For what it's worth, Sony were successfully sued when they tried this with OtherOS.

I don't know of any company that's been seriously challenged for disabling hacks, though.

Sony paid some users $10 and OtherOS functionality was never restored. Not a good precedent for consumers.

> under what premise is it desirable that the government should mandate how companies design and sell products

Under all circumstances in which the profit motive does not align with societies desires. Safety, health, discrimination, consumer rights, etc.

It seems like they're being allowed a software monopoly that reduces consumer choice and increasing consumer costs.

Who is being given a software monopoly? Nintendo controlling the software that runs on their hardware is not a monopoly.

Maybe a small one, but controlling all the software for a device is definitely a type of monopoly - Nintendo has 100% control of what's allowed and permitted to run on the hardware. If I want to sell Switch users software, I can't without Nintendo's blessing because they have complete control of the market.

That’s not really what a monopoly is, at least in any useful sense.

Applebees has 100% control over the food that they put on plates inside Applebees, they can ban you from bringing in outside food and beverages. But we wouldn’t say that Applebees has a monopoly on anything.

Nintendo has total control over the software that runs on their hardware. Their hardware model is similar to the model that my microwave has. People are welcome to try to DIY mod their Nintendo device the same way I can try to DIY mod my microwave, but that doesn’t mean the government ought to be putting a stop to Nintendo’s “monopoly” on how the hardware they build is built and imaged.

They are being granted a monopoly on the bits representing the software they created. That is literally what copyright is.

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