Big pivotal moment is probably the DMCA and the DRM it's enabled, it's really eroded the concept of ownership in both software and hardware (via firmware), to the point where we've completely lost all control over the devices we buy.

These days devices do what we ask when it benefits their real owners, and refuse to do what we ask of them when it doesn't.

It wasn't an overnight thing, but the temperature in the pot has been increasing for well over a two decades and it's getting more than a bit sweaty.

It's not like Doctorow, the EFF, and a bunch of others didn't warn us. They told us this would happen. Like exactly this.

If you don't have laws, or don't enforce them, people will do whatever they want.

I can remember when this simple point was obvious to almost everyone.

Lawmakers should have outlawed EULAs the moment they first showed up in software. The idea that someone could sell you a product which is completely broken until you sign away all your rights on a contract you don't get to see before the purchase is the most anti-consumer thing ever invented. Nothing worked like that before software came along.

The fact that it's now infecting other non-software consumer products is a reason why congress should kill this with fire. Companies are putting screens onto products specifically so they can force an EULA on customers.

If you do it, you have to be more subtle about it. See Apple.

Sony and Microsoft fought to own the living room in console wars

Companies are amoral. If killing people boosted their share price they would issue every employee a machine gun in a heartbeat. The only reason this doesn't happen is it's illegal.

Marketing executives thinking “out of the box” is how. Ethics cannot contain them inside. They have breached the perimeter and now trample everyone for MRR.

I'm not sure how anyone didn't see this coming.

Literally every business is working towards a solution where consumers own nothing and they own everything. Games, music, movies. They want to sell you subscriptions to use shit like your car or your fridge. They want to double dip on that by making you not only pay for the ability to use the stuff you bought, but also so that they can sell everything you do on it to advertisers. This is even especially true with all the shit people feed LLMs daily for work or personal purposes.

This is the end state of an unregulated capitalist market without consumer protections.

How is it insane. Owning distribution channels has been valuable since the beginning of commerce. It's no different than a newspaper company saying they own the paper so they have the power to print ads in it.

It's not entirely the fault of the industry. Consumer preferences are part of this equation too.

https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/roku-vizio-lean-...

If consumers are unwilling to shell out for a TV priced high enough that the manufacturer doesn't need to do things like this to earn a (decent) profit, then what we've got is what you get.

You could certainly argue that the industry should've held the line, but that ignores human nature. One "innovative" manufacturer was always going to break ranks then the rest would follow, especially since the typical consumer appears (judging by the lack of non smart TV's for sale at consumer prices) to prefer lower prices to lack of tracking features. I think people very much like being able to buy a 65" tv for USD399.

If you want to mandate the sales of TVs that don't track, get a law passed. I suspect it'd be deeply unpopular once the resulting price rises were known.