This problem will only be solved by legislation. If countries seek to reduce e-waste they need to force electronics makers to ensure a minimum length of support on the same conditions as existed on the date of sale - say 10 years.
But yeah, would be nice. "No updates - give source code on OSS license + reasonably easy way to flash".
1. Give everyone who ever bought the product a full refund
2. Publicly release all of the source code plus any and all private signing keys necessary to overcome tivoization
at the point that the support is ended, the company isn't making any more money on the product, so legal remedies like forbidding its importation or halting its manufacturing would be ineffective; even remedies like fines and injunctions to specific performance might be ineffective if the company no longer exists or no longer exports to your country, or if they've laid off the people who knew how to compile the firmware
so to have an enforceable law you need to require the release (or at least deposit) of the complete corresponding source code up front, not at some future time
While it makes a case for self-hosting your software that doesn't come for free either. Ideally, you get to control your own destiny, but not for free.
The lesson? Nothing is free. There's always cost / risk; hidden or otherwise.
Perhaps some labeling similar to energy efficiency labeling could be regulated where anything that doesn’t allow for use without the remote service gets a big red “D”sticker, while things that are completely local gets a big green “A”?
Some of the best gear I have uses different cloud services but I won’t buy something that would be a paperweight should the cloud service disappear. The cloud service merely improves the product (e.g keeps video from surveillance cameras) but the cameras work without it, and you can set up your own recording if you want.
Cloud stuff is here to stay. We deserve clarity in what does use cloud stuff, but we also need legislation that puts a proper fear into bad actors who make expansive promises (and, likely, stronger liability applied to shipping software that needs patching).
Replacing a hard drive trivial, though. But in any case, if someone doesn't want to do such maintenance every decade or so, there are repair shops that will do it for them.
You could say "well, filter on reviews", but the review space has been drastically compromised with the rise of "influencer" types, too.
Replacing the hard drive in it couldn't be easier. You do have to remove four screws to get into the box, but once there, you just unplug the old one and plug in the new one. When you power it up, the box notices that the hard drive is new and asks you if you want it to be prepared for use (with requisite warnings about losing any data that may be on it). If you click "Yes," it does what it needs to do and starts using it.
Aside from opening the case, my grandmother could handle this without any problem at all.
I simply assumed that better systems than mine would be as easy, but perhaps I assumed too much.
I think in terms of waste, the key is that devices are still functioning and valuable, even if they aren't as good to the original buyer as they once were. A different cloud service might pop up to replace the one that the smart doorbell maker canceled. Or the initial buyer can sell the smart doorbell to a customer that does have the patience to deal with local recording.
It'll always be hard to use tech for non-technical people, but at least avoiding the situation where thousands of functioning gadgets are bricked and thrown away should be possible to achive through regulation.
I think this would require a drastically different consumer mindset. Because I don't think there is a market for used doorbells.
> It'll always be hard to use tech for non-technical people
As much as I don't like the products, Nest and Ring are not hard to use for non-technical people. They remove the moving parts that may demand maintenance and may cause failures that are beyond a power cycle's reach to fix.
In that light, the best regulatory solution is probably to ensconce terms-at-purchase as indefinitely binding for SaaS-attached hardware. No price increases, no end-of-service so long as the company is still in business.
Especially when there's no legal consequences for manufacturers publicly and unambiguously lying about it. Remember how Anker said that their Eufy product line stored all of your data locally, and then they didn't get punished when the truth came out?
I've been suckered to buy cloud-shit that I wasn't aware it was. When helping some family with a failed wifi/router, I got some newer Linksys router. Brought it over to them, and demands an online account with some app on the phone.
Looked online with my phone, and verified they went cloud only and no reasonable (non-ddwrt, etc) way to bypass it. I wrote "DEFECTIVE" in sharpie on the bottom of the router, packaged it right back up and took it back to the retailer for a refund.
I bought a non-Linksys/Cisco brand that didn't play stupid games. Changed the SSID, BSSID, and WPA2 config to be the old one, and finished the install in just a few minutes. It does its job and just works. Has been for like 4+ years.
Finding one that didn't require an internet connection was exceedingly difficult. It can be hard to even tell if they require an internet connection or now -- and it seems most of them do.
I did eventually find one, but if I need to do something like this again, I'll build it myself. It would be much faster and easier.