Ownership is an important consumer right which is under attack.
Ownership is not an all-or-nothing state of affairs: it is piecemeal. Ownership is shades of gray between absolute unfettered control, and zero allowance at all. Tech companies are increasingly taking away the ownership of the products we bought and paid for, one feature at a time.
To understand this principle, consider real estate, like a single family home. Technically, you could argue that you fully own your real estate because you pay taxes on it and are usually subject to zoning laws, but even so, most people would still say that you “own” your property in a meaningful sense of the word.
However, imagine what we would say if you lost more and more control over your property. For example, your land might suddenly get a large easement on it where you can no longer build on the land and you can’t park vehicles on it either. You might also lose the water rights, or the mineral rights, or the airspace rights. The property might even become landlocked such that you can’t even legally access it unless you parachute down from a plane. But you still “own” the property… right? Well, not really, not in any meaningful sense of the word.
Ownership of real estate is piecemeal, just like ownership of anything else, and there comes a point at which most reasonable people would say that you don’t really “own” the property in any meaningful sense of the word. Ownership is an amalgamation of different abilities you have over the thing in question, and there comes a point at which a reasonable person would say that you no longer “own” the thing in question in any reasonable sense of the word, even if you technically own it in a purely legal sense.
Fundamentally, this is the problem with many consumer electronic devices, and our laws have failed to catch up to the reality facing consumers. Manufacturers, in their hunt for ever more ways to exploit us for money, have gradually taken away ownership in every meaningful sense of the word.
- Artificially restricting the availability of repair parts so you are required to come to the manufacturer for repairs.
- Locking the bootloader of your phone so you cannot install a different operating system if you want to.
- Forcing advertisements to be shown on the screen of your smart fridge even though you already paid full price for a device that you supposedly own.
- Collecting intimate details about you to sell for profit without your explicit informed consent.
Just as a person’s ownership of real estate can cease to be meaningful when they lose a certain amount of control over it, manufacturers of consumer electronics are quietly making ownership of personal electronic devices meaningless.
To make it clear just how egregious companies like Apple, Samsung, BMW, and Nvidia are being, imagine if you bought a new construction house, but the builder did the following things:
- The builder locked the door to your furnace room and told you that only they, the builder, can access and repair the furnace, even though it’s your furnace. And imagine that it was ILLEGAL to break the lock on that door which you supposedly own (locking your own property such that you can’t manipulate it).
- The builder painted their name on the side of your house, and it was illegal to paint over it or otherwise obscure it (forced advertisements on your property).
- The builder collected information about how much water, gas, and electricity you are using and sell it to home insurance companies without your knowledge or consent (selling data).
Just as it would be unacceptable and indeed unconscionable for house builders to do these things, so to is it unacceptable and unconscionable for manufacturers of consumer electronics to do these things. And yet, they continue to abuse the American people, who have no choice but to accept the situation because EVERY manufacturer is doing these unacceptable things. It is long overdue for the government to take a stand and defend the people of this country from exploitative and disgusting business practices, to say enough is enough, to say that ownership must include things like being able to modify, unlock, and repair the things you bought and paid for.