I don’t know how we can’t legislate this into existence eventually if nothing else just based on climate change and the amount of working material we just… throw away. Especially as more and more things integrate software, I imagine that it’s going to feel absolutely insane to people in a few decades (after the water wars and the great migrations) that they had technology like the microscope in the post but the company decided no more software updates so now it’s just garbage.
This perspective is the one that is brought to you by late stage capitalism, and is pretty obviously unethical. The microscope didn’t break, your company broke it. The hardware still works, it’s still functional, your company breaking it because part of your business plan is planned obsolescence isn’t even close to something we should tolerate, and especially in a climate conscience environment should be working really hard to do away with. This is also a relatively new phenomenon, right to repair didn’t become a movement until companies started not only not supporting their products, but actively blocking attempts at support the products because of planned obsolescence and overpriced support contracts.
Which brings me to the other big problem with this comment. Everyone replying saying “no I wouldn’t do that,” including me, would probably absolutely do what you’re saying in a lot of cases. This is again, just part of capitalism. Profit must always go up, we must always feed the beast. Cultural norms now dictate this, and you can find someone justifying even the worst shit in just about every thread because our brains are so broken by this.
Our laws should take account for this. No business model should trump basic ethics. People generally fall into this behavior. If you’re outright designing it this way, please board the next rocket for the sun.
abandonware empires (mander.xyz)