It’s fine when they brick our property, but its a crime when we brick their property.
Forced updates should be outlawed.
As should forced Internet connectivity
That becomes a problem when we’re talking about the 1% of updates that are sent to prevent your smart TV from becoming part of a distributed botnet, though. Some people might even complain about the 9% of updates intended to keep up with churn in the APIs of 3rd-party services that are part of the functionality the device was purchased for.
What we need is something that restricts forced updates to those categories. That requires regulation, which likely means starting in the EU, since that’s the only major jurisdiction that’s (sometimes) pro-consumer. We also need regulations on labeling that force the manufacturer to indicate on the outside of the packaging in big letters exactly what advertised functionality of a device will break if it’s kept off the internet.
Why would producers control the device I paid for?
Google did that to my and others Nexus TV years ago and never did shit to fix it… it’s why I will never buy and recommend that others never buy their shitty hardware.
Seems kike Roku decided to join the party.
