Especially with win11 claiming to be eco-friendly in various places ("reduce CO2 footprint") it's somewhat annoying to force a hardware refresh cycle like that.
Lawmakers could make chip designers replace all the chips but,
1) that's not very environmental either
2) it would be pretty disastrous for everyone when Intel and AMD go under because they can't actually afford to replace every chip they had in existence at the time
3) assuming this was somehow done in a way they could afford, the costs for these replacements ultimately get passed on to customers. For replacements that were never necessary to begin with. It's just kind of wasteful.
Right now, that argument seems to be simultaneously "It's critical enough for Microsoft to explicitly deny running Windows 11 on it" and "It's not critical enough that Intel and AMD should do something about it, except to sell more stuff."
What kind of incentives does that create?
Just like with too big to fail companies and banks, only half of the equation is being applied:
CPU industry wants to start using risky design techniques to get an edge on the competition? Who are we to tell them no? it's a free market.
CPU industry can't afford to replace the defects that came about from their risky choices? They are too big and important to be held accountable.
You're ignoring half the equation too here. There are benefits to having faster and more efficient computers for the past couple decades that could execute more instructions per clock cycle.
These vulnerabilities are subtle, hard to predict, and can take years or decades to discover. Anything that makes computers faster is a risky design technique. If you want safe chips, you'd better say goodbye to caches, multithreading, and hyperthreading as well. You'll be left with a slow, inefficient chip. Non-American companies that aren't forced to take zero risks would take over the market and be miles ahead.
The first part of that isn't right. Microsoft decided it wasn't worth it for them to support 6 year old chips on their new OS. People with older hardware can continue to run Windows 10. The two operating systems are almost the same anyway.
Microsoft's decision is not an indicator that you're in much danger from Meltdown.
If people want extensive warranties like that on their electronics, they can already buy extensive warranties on their electronics.
Why force everyone to pay for these things?
Or do you just want to control what other people are doing?
Since you raised the valid point of “why make everyone pay”, it seems they (OP) are concerned that currently _everyone_ is paying for the externalities of shitty electronics and the associated ewaste.
Of course these kinds of externalities are impossible (or just really hard?) to rectify at the individual-action level, its a collective action problem.
So they raised the interesting point why not target the specific companies who manufactured this faulty product and require them to clean-up the problem they’ve created.
If nothing else, it’s a useful conversation to have?
Assume for the sake of argument, that I agree that there are externalities and that we should do something about them.
The economics textbook tells you the simple solution: tax the externalities. In our case, you might want to tax e-waste (or directly tax whatever is bad about e-waste, like heavy metals or so.)
Then let the market figure out how to deal with it. Perhaps offering extended warranties is the way to go? Perhaps developing compostable computers is the way to go? Perhaps using fewer computers is the way to go? Perhaps just sucking it up, doing nothing and paying for the externalities is the way to go?
It's not at all obvious to me which of these (if any) is the best solution. And I don't have high hopes than any government would figure out the best solution either.
Different people might even have different answers, and suppliers can provide for this diversity.
This simple tax avoids a lot of regulatory complexity. Remember, that regulatory complexity leads to loopholes and regulatory capture and endless lobbying.
Do you tax on material weight ? But bigger sized systems tends to be easier to repair/recycle than nano electronics. They also often last longer.
Do you tax on raw materials ? That would exclude all the junk made abroad. Or on components ? That would make a gigantic and perpetually changing list to maintain, creating an incentive to always create alternatives only needed to game this tax.
Hope does that address the externality “not infinite material rarefaction” ? Making thinks more expensive just make them less affordable for a part of the population while the other part can not care much especially for cheap disposable(!) small devices.
I don’t have the perfect solution but IMHO we need regulations, not tax. Creating an obligatory (long) warranty would push the society in the sustainability direction. I don’t need 2$ led lamp, an even slimmer keyboard or a 120hz screen, just want it to last way more (or being able to make repair) that 2/3 product cycle time frame defined by the corp business team. Who want to say to their children “enjoy this tech while there’s still some rare earth left” ?
You can adapt the tax to fix that problem. See how VAT systems handle imports and exports. If your stuff needs eg lead, you either prove that you dispose of it properly, or you pay the tax.
> I don’t have the perfect solution but IMHO we need regulations, not tax.
Why? Wouldn't your argument also work for a 'good enough' tax?
I agree that a tax also needs some careful thinking about what the exactly the externalities are that you want to tax. But it still leaves more flexibility to consumers and suppliers than a blanket regulation like 'mandatory long warranty, whether you want it or not'.
> Making thinks more expensive just make them less affordable for a part of the population while the other part can not care much especially for cheap disposable(!) small devices.
I don't understand this objection. Could you please explain?
Obligatory long warranties also raise the price of goods.
> Who want to say to their children “enjoy this tech while there’s still some rare earth left” ?
Are you suggesting we are going to run out of rare earth elements? Fat chance. We are sitting on a giant ball of matter, we are not going to run out of any elements. We might be running out of easily mine-able deposits of something, but either the price will go up a bit or someone will invent a new technique. (The former often leads to the latter.)
> I don’t need 2$ led lamp, an even slimmer keyboard or a 120hz screen, just want it to last way more (or being able to make repair) that 2/3 product cycle time frame defined by the corp business team.
That's a valid preference, and I suggest you put your money where your mouth is.
It is way harder for a customs officier to distinguish if a package contains some trace of lead, gold, bore, cobalt, disprosium, neodyme… in some micro chip than classifying in “raw material, “alcool”, “processed food”, “weapon” etc.
Making thinks more expensive to prevent usage is pointless and that’s why countries put speed limits in place. Speed is dangerous (see ek=1/2mv2) and a “speed tax” would only reduce a road accidents to the proportional inverse of its users wallets. As the e-waste and elements rarefaction have impacts that last way longer than a road accidents, we need to absolute regulations to avoid those externalities. Relatives regulations (taxes) are good to balance some parts of the economy, not to prevent problems.
Of course I would stand for tax it can do a “good enough” job.
> We might be running out of easily mine-able deposits of something, but either the price will go up a bit or someone will invent a new technique.
What makes you suppose the price will go up only a bit ? What makes you expect a material price will stay bellow the economical threshold of its extraction ? I dream too of new clean techniques but the history showed us those inventions relies on way more energy and/or also have externalities on resources and environnement. I’m sure you’ll find plenty in battery material alternatives and oil replacement/new extraction techniques. Fracking [0] is my Favorite one.
0 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/D...
I'm not sure why you keep harping on about people's wallets? Yes, rich people can afford more stuff. What else is new?
The economic theory of taxing externalities does not rely on all people having the same size wallet.
Have a look at eg London's congestion charge: it's not a problem for that system, that some people are richer than others.
You can also look at Singapore's congestion charge or Singapore's Certificate of Entitlement system. Or look at the very successful US sulphur dioxide cap and trade programme: it's not a problem that rich people can in theory just pay to emit more sulphur dioxide, the system still works.
> What makes you suppose the price will go up only a bit?
In the long run, the same reasoning that made Simon win his wager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
> What makes you expect a material price will stay bellow the economical threshold of its extraction ?
Sorry, I don't understand. The price will generally be above that threshold, otherwise why would anyone bother extracting the stuff?
> Fracking [0] is my Favorite one.
Fracking is great, yes, I agree. One my favourites as well:
The extra natural gas that the US got from fracking allowed them to reduce their carbon emissions in the 2010s, despite lack of political support for such a goal! Holier than thou Europe meanwhile increased their carbon emissions, because fracking is verboten over there, so they burned more coal and oil instead.
Because some regulation is actually useful in a world where consumers cannot be expected to know everything and be able to test everything.
And some assumptions about a product should hold true as well. E.g. the assumption should be that if I buy a desktop CPU today I should be able to use it for at least n years. Because how would you know this beforehand?
If Intel made an optimization that turns out to be a security flaw, that is totally their fault and they should cover it. This is nothing any consumer could have known (and rherefore avoided buying) beforehand. This is the cost of taking risks in business.
It seems to be a popular stance these days to shill for corporations and protect them from ever having their risks realized. But that makes the products and the world we live in worse for everybody and gives you nothing at all.
You ask the manufacturer, duh? If they lie, that's fraud. If you don't like the answer, you don't buy.
> If Intel made an optimization that turns out to be a security flaw, that is totally their fault and they should cover it. This is nothing any consumer could have known (and therefore avoided buying) beforehand. This is the cost of taking risks in business.
Customers and suppliers should be able to allocate such risks between themselves however they like.
You can fiddle with what the default should be, in case they haven't negotiated anything.
But if both customer and supplier agree, the customer should be allowed to bear such a risk.
> It seems to be a popular stance these days to shill for corporations and protect them from ever having their risks realized.
Why? I have nothing against any particular allocation of the risks, as long as all involved parties agree. (Otherwise, they just don't make a deal.)
> Gotcha, so you are also against electrical regulations like requirements to use tested insulators etc?
If you claim they are tested, you better not lie. Otherwise it's fraud and you should be held liable.
If a customer wants to buy untested insulators, who am I to keep them?
I mean, in the most extreme case, a customer can buy bread and try to use it as an insulator, if they really want to. There's nothing the supplier can do about that.
How should I, as a consumer, have voted against this with my wallet, before it happened?
We can argue whether this is the fault of the hardware manufacturer or the software company that sells the OS, but I am 100% sure that no consumer should take the blame for "not doing their research".
That's what long term reputation is for.
I happily resell you Intel processors at a 10x markup but you get a ten year warranty that I'll replace your processor with a new one of no worse specs, if similar vulnerabilities get discovered.
Details to be negotiated.
(More seriously: you don't need a new manufacturer. Someone else can do the warranty at a price.
That's actually what eg Apple Care: if a part inside your device catches on fire, Apple will replace it, even though they did not necessarily manufacture that part.
I have no clue whether their particular policy covers the vulnerabilities we are talking about. But you can easily imagine a variant of such an insurance policy that does.)
If someone promises you that the product will do something or eg 'not be defective', they should stick to that promise or face prosecution for fraud or false advertising or similar.
I pay my taxes to eg fund national defense or make sure that poor people get some welfare. I don't pay my taxes so that the government can decide how much warranty I need. (They do some of that anyway. But I'd rather they don't.)
These problems can’t be fixed without large sacrifices in performance, perhaps it’ll happen in specialized products but it hasn’t happened yet.
As per your assertion (that I agree with, btw) Intel/AMD Model N+1 is affected (just slightly less so) and can be used with Windows 11.
So, either this is fixable, then it's on Intel/AMD to replace defective hardware (or offer a fix that is worth unlocking Windows 11 over, e.g. through microcode) or it's not fixable in which case, why prevent the older chips from running Windows 11 if they're in exactly the same situation?
Either way, Microsoft's decision seems arbitrary, and puts the onus on their customers instead of the culprits, the chip vendors, who even get rewarded by encouraging new sales!
The claim that this class of issues is the reason for Microsoft’s hardware requirements for Windows 11 is not mine.