Below is a comment by someone commenting on Rossmann's video on the testimonies for/against right 2 repair laws. I found it quite illuminating so here it goes.
Silicon Valley has turned us into software subscribers. Now, they are essentially trying to turn us into hardware subscribers.
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Bless you Louis; you're doing important work. I think you need to widen the scope of your argument.
I've been working in Silicon Valley for Fortune 10 corporations for 30 years and I've been privy to "business model" conversations for decades there.
Here's my take (pardon the length): If you take a step back the essential reality behind what Silicon Valley corporations are trying to do, is disenfranchise consumers and abolish private property; more specifically and more importantly, the means of labor. They've already managed to pull it off for software; now they're essentially all subscribers. The current attitude as it pertains to hardware reeks of this being the intent for hardware too. Everything in software is SaaS today and the next step is to do SaaS for hardware.
They also see that this is a prevalent model in the auto industry : Most people don't really own their cars, they lease them and under the leasing contract all maintenance is done by the dealership. In general, the whole "sharing economy" (Uber and the like) is also going down that business model — you no longer own your means of labor; they're owned by the corporation.
They don't want consumers — and especially workers, to own anything — they want you on a leash, forever in debt, a brick in a huge Ponzi scheme where the entire life of the worker/consumer belongs to business model and you are nothing else than a credit line.
Keep this in mind when you argue the Right to Repair: It goes well beyond "repair"; it goes into the very fabric of what it is to be a citizen, a worker and consumer in a market society. Companies don't want you to repair what you purchased from them because they don't really consider you've ever acquired the goods; you're a hardware subscriber and they want you to be tethered to them as a dependent; a predictable source of revenue for a publicly traded industry that needs to predict revenue and growth each quarter.
How do you ensure predictable revenue when you're Apple ? You lock consumers in. What does "locking-in" mean ? Alienation, subservience, dependence. I'm not even a libertarian, nor a marxist, and there's no hidden anarchist agenda in my arguments — I simply believe in private property as an essential pillar of civil liberty.
If what this industry does is not "abuse of dominant position" and wilful distortion of market forces to benefit nobody else but tech industry shareholders, what is it ? If you've studied the past, you'll recall the economic model of plantation owners relied on the slaves/workers not owning the tools of their labor. You were strictly forced (or allowed) to work under the monopoly of the plantation owners. Ironically the same model was instated by the Soviets, although they pretended to make it legitimate by claiming nothing belonged to any individual. Both the Bolcheviks and the plantation owners abused their lucrative monopolies.
The foundation upon which the republic and civil liberties are built, is private property. If many in the tech industry have their way, the US will become one large plantation where a class of owners can shut you off your job, your communications and your access to education and culture, simply by remotely turning your devices into bricks. The hour is grave.
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