Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 41 posts

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#11

Post by bobmcnamara »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #6
superkuh wrote: post #4

This all started with software and because we didn't stop it there it'll keep happening to software that runs hardware. There was a popular game called "Rocket League" that Psyonix company sold and ran the infrastructure for for many years. But then Epic corporation bought Psyonix for Rocket League's playerbase to bootstrap their proprietary game delivery service. 6 months later everyone who had bought the game for M…

Via Wikipedia: > The developer offered full refunds to the game for macOS and Linux owners regardless of how long they had the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_League#Free-to-play_tra... https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rocket-league-ending-mac-an...

Brutal.

Like the repo man leaving you a tip.

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#14

Post by benoau »

Really just an extension of the "Stop Killing Games" initiative, "Stop Killing Everything Else", even the Belkin devices that will survive through HomeKit are tied to an iOS device with a limited support period! Buy a new everything every 5 - 10 years or your stuff might get bricked or left to fend for itself without security patches. The whole tech industry needs to change.

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#15

Post by AndrewDucker »

This is why I'm buying "smart" things only if they either work fine without the internet or if they are part of a standard.

My washing machine tells me when it's done, and that's handy, but if it goes away I can still wash clothes. My smart bulbs work with anything that supports Thread/Matter.

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#16

Post by sofixa »

kmerfeld wrote: post #9
sigwinch28 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Via Wikipedia: > The developer offered full refunds to the game for macOS and Linux owners regardless of how long they had the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_League#Free-to-play_tra... https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rocket-league-ending-mac-an...

Its less bad that they offered refunds, but why would it that make it ok? If you buy a car, and the company lights it on fire and then offers you a refund is that ok? You'll still have the burnt husk if you choose not to take the refund They broke something after they sold it

It's hard to take this comparison seriously because Rocket League is a (mostly) online game for which an active connection to active servers (and thus a cost to the developer). Also, there is no burnt husk.

It's like you paying to get lifetime access to a club, the club closing and reimbursing you.

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#17

Post by Neikius »

sofixa wrote: post #16
kmerfeld wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its less bad that they offered refunds, but why would it that make it ok? If you buy a car, and the company lights it on fire and then offers you a refund is that ok? You'll still have the burnt husk if you choose not to take the refund They broke something after they sold it

It's hard to take this comparison seriously because Rocket League is a (mostly) online game for which an active connection to active servers (and thus a cost to the developer). Also, there is no burnt husk. It's like you paying to get lifetime access to a club, the club closing and reimbursing you.

Since when are companies required to run servers for multiplayer? There is always other ways to play multiplayer. At least there used to be but not any more. It is just a thinly veiled excuse to be able to shut it off.

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#18

Post by Angostura »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #5
greatgib wrote: post #3

I'm not against manufacturer stopping support for their Internet Of Shits devices, but there should be a law making it mandatory for them to release source code, protocol specs and whatever is needed so that a man of the craft could be able to do what is necessary to continue using the product that he bought.

I'd rather a law mandating that all devices include an 'offline' option for any hardware features that could conceivably support one. I don't want to create an account for my toaster, nor have my lightbulb send updates to an analytics server, nor have my washing machine cease to function when my wifi goes down. A ban on products tying hardware features to an internet connection would fix all those problems in additio…

I love this idea. But “ features that could conceivably support one.” is going to be the tricky bit to regulate

Re: Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers' stuff

#20

Post by superkuh »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #6
superkuh wrote: post #4

This all started with software and because we didn't stop it there it'll keep happening to software that runs hardware. There was a popular game called "Rocket League" that Psyonix company sold and ran the infrastructure for for many years. But then Epic corporation bought Psyonix for Rocket League's playerbase to bootstrap their proprietary game delivery service. 6 months later everyone who had bought the game for M…

Via Wikipedia: > The developer offered full refunds to the game for macOS and Linux owners regardless of how long they had the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_League#Free-to-play_tra... https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rocket-league-ending-mac-an...

I have tried to keep the Psyonix wikipedia article true to reality if you look at the change history but there are people working for Epic heavily whitewashing it and I didn't want to force (wiki) arbitration or cause a disturbance after the first couple edit/revert battles. The Rocket League one is even harder to keep true.

Basically, they said they were stealing the Mac and Linux Rocket League versions because they wanted to go full directx 10 instead of 9. But the fact that the PS3 is still a first class client running Directx 9 even today shows this is/was a lie. Epic lies quite a bit. In fact when they bought Psyonix they loudly announced there would be no changes, it'd stay rocket league. But of course that lie only lasted 6 months. And now they re-write the wiki pages to pretend it was always the plan.

Anyway, I didn't want a refund. I wanted to keep playing rocket league. And now I cannot play. That's wrong. They bricked my game. And everyone thinks that's A-OK. Just like when they'll brick your modem, or your fridge, or maybe your car. Frankly, having any software in a $thing is a huge risk these days given the status quo.

Post reply on HN