Hacker News Reader

Comment by tails4e | Hacker News Reader

This is a very real issue for even expensive items. If you buy a car today, doesn't it have some sw component that requires phoning home to work properly. What if that company goes bust? Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side? Both Tesla and byd seem like challenging purchases with all that's going on

View on HN

I'm thinking that removing the smarts from "smart" devices may become a lucrative cottage industry in the next 25 years, as devices become orphaned and useless when their manufacturers disappear or go out of business. Bonus service: Pre-dumbing a smart device to increase its usefulness prior to purchase. Store sells a "Smart Dishwasher" for $400? I'll unlock it and un-app it and sell it to you for $500 instead.

Products are often cheap enough that the labor costs are too high compared to getting a new unit. It would generally work for appliances that are built into a house or hard to transport because then the relative cost would be offset by the cost of labor to remove and install a replacement.

For example, people generally wouldn’t do this for a TV when they can get a decent replacement for $300 new.

It would probably only work in countries where services are cheaper than buying new.

For example in south america is is common to get shoes repaired or customized. Clothing altered to fit or be repaired etc. In the US it really only makes sense if that article of clothing is > $200-300. Its pretty hard around me to find a tailor that will do much of anything more than basic hemming for less than $75-100. whereas in south america it would only cost me around $5 to get something altered or a shoe repaired.

I would get something altered about once a month in south america. In the US, maybe once every couple years.

A lot of things are about to become very, very expensive in the US, if Trump isn't stopped somehow. If there's a silver lining, it's that people are going to want to hang on to what they have and keep it working.

You write "Products are often cheap enough" as if that is a law of nature — it isn't. That is the result of a global production chain that has valued efficiency of production over nearly everything else. This is currently changed, now national interests became more important in the most careless way possible.

There are many examples of countries where old technology has to be maintained because the new is unavailable or unaffordable.

> they can get a decent replacement for $300 new

Presumably the "decent replacement" will also be too smart for their own good and there will be people who will pay extra on purchase for a "de-smarted" device.

Speaking of which, I shudder to think what will happen if my current TV ever breaks. Would getting a "smart" TV and physically removing the wifi help?

My prediction is that more devices will start to come with an eSIM that phones home and downloads more ads or uploads user data whether you give it WiFi access or not.

That may be a business opportunity... make faraday cages that enclose the right spots on specific tv models...

Have you ever seen TV not connected to the Internets? Some models refuse to work with "no free storage" alert if it has spywared too much data about the used (used is any user of proprietary sw). When the used connects the snoop-TV to the network it of course unloads the data.

> Have you ever seen TV not connected to the Internets?

I'm a luddite. I have an 1080p TV from before Android TVs.

And I'm afraid to upgrade it...

I'm kinda in the same boat, my 14yo 1080p TV still works like a charm, so my worry is more about what would happen if it died?

I haven't had a "TV" for over 25 years now.

I still have a dumb monitor that costs more than a TV that would have a larger diameter with an HTPC that is really just a regular Linux install and that runs open source software on it. Which software has changed over the years, as has what kind of "TV" I get on it, from actually having a cable TV tuner in there to all streaming or local files. Over that time frame, it has become increasingly harder to get things to work "properly".

As in, yes there are caveats to this of course. Like there's no Netflix (/insert your favourite streaming service) app for it and you probably can't get 4k and/or surround sound from in-browser. As in, they're intentionally making the experience of people actually paying money to them worse.

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

Those things aren't cheap.

GSM module? I think it costs several dollars. They are already installed into electricity meters for example.

The lifetime subscription :)

It doesn't need to be lifetime, only as long as devices are supported. Also, electricity meters makers somehow solved this problem. I am sure a subscription won't be expensive if the device doesn't use too much data. Also the device maker can pay with collected data or advertisement.

Electricity meters are already conveniently plugged to a wire?

Amazon Sidewalk can also be used - it automatically finds devices on other networks (like your next-door neighbor) and sends data through their devices in case you don't connect your device to your own network.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/

Remember the PlayStation chips the gamesshop people soldered in while waiting for customers .

Start with luxury items. You're right, not many people would pay $500 for a dumbed down device when they can buy a smart device for $300. But, I know for a fact that there are enough people that would pay $5000 for a $3000 tv if it had the default OS removed and replaced with something sane.

The problem is it may require both replacement computing hardware and software. At that point, you may just want to make competing washing machines.

I'd beware the legal system in that case. A lot of product liability claims could be (spuriously or not) redirected on whoever last touched the firmware.

If you are merchant in a class of products, directing (not "redirecting") product liability claims for anything you sell to you isn't "disingenuous", it is just the normal rule of product liability. And that's even if you aren't modifying the product on the way.

its likely to be illegal for cars for safety reasons. Manufacturers will use legal roadblocks on other devices.

For a real world example Subaru, when 3G shut down, their wireless modems started massively draining the battery even for people with no subscription. As it tried over and over again to connect to the 3G network to check if you even had a subscription.

The manufacturer had (has) no good solution to this. They just change something to dealer mode and hope your battery never completely drains and resets it.

Wasn't the fix for this pulling the fuse to the wireless modem?

> Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side?

the company has something over the consumer, unlike the products of old. This is what i dislike about new age products that are so internet enabled.

It started with game consoles, but it won't end with cars.

I just want a self-contained piece of equipment that can work in perpetuity. Look at those old milling and lathe machines - some are as old as 30 yrs, and works brilliantly.

Many are much older than that.

It's played out countless times already, so often that the fact consumers are still not protected is now negligence and not simple innovation getting ahead of law.

It was predicted early on in the first IoT booms, earlier still in software, and I have to imagine even before computers were a thing, bespoke components rather than commodity items in particular parts of machines likely had the same effect.

Screw that these days. I drive a 2014 French compact POS rather than my old 2018 Model S now. It actually works properly and over its entire lifetime, including fuel, it'll cost less than the depreciation of the Model S while I owned it.

Can you please elaborate why BYD purchase could be a challenge? Do they call home and potentially get bricked if the home doesn't respond?

I'm considering buying one, being in India, so would appreciate an explanation.

As long as India and China have a good stance with each other there will probably be no problems. But if that ever changes, who can tell if services won't be "disrupted" by "accident" and take longer than expected to be fully functional again (if ever).

Same goes for Tesla. Same goes for every brand, but some are probably more likely than other to be used as a kind of "weapon" in a trade war or sth. alike.

I understand those aspects.

I'm asking for specifics. i.e., which system(s) of BYD call home which if didn't work end up bricking or severely impact the working of the vehicle.

People don't care, they buy smart lights, smart HVAC, smart thermostats, smart coffee machines, smart juice pressers, &c. It's all going to end up in a landmine before 10 years. The vast majority of things we can buy are made to fail quickly or are irreparable, usually both

We're multiplying points of failure and increasing the repairability complexity 100 fold, for a tiny bit of convenience, sometimes, maybe

> a landmine

I hope this is a typo or this is a terrifying prediction.

And it's creeping into more and more of our stuff

Reply on news.ycombinator.com