131–140 of 400 posts
Stuff like this is great fun, but if we just don't buy things from known bad actors in the first place, we can save ourselves the trouble of playing whack-a-mole.
Agree in general but if the hardware is subsidized and you're able to excise the bad actor's trash from the device, you come out ahead and the company loses a bit.
Just a reminder Oculus is a company founded on taking tech from other companies and getting away with it. Don't give them money, don't buy their devices. Getting acquired by facebook and turning the VR sets into spyware and facebook funnels just makes them worse. If you want to be ethical get an HMD from someone other than Oculus/Facebook. I wouldn't give them a dime. Sources: alan yates (posting as vk2zay on reddit)…
This is especially strange since Apple makes tons of money off online software sales tied to their hardware. I believe several other companies (like all the console manufacturers in the game space that Valve is in) do to.
It's fundamentally a very bad call.
Stuff like this is great fun, but if we just don't buy things from known bad actors in the first place, we can save ourselves the trouble of playing whack-a-mole.
This would be great if there was any hope to see a better actor coming in. Currently buying a Quest 2 equivalent from a "good" actor is just thought exercise. Looking at Vive, they don't seem ready to enter the regular consumer market anytime soon. Google and Samsung threw the towel long ago. I'm not sure Microsoft could be a better actor than Facebook if they wanted to (remember it all came down on us way after the…
Huh?
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If I spend $50,000 on a tractor that also has a cloud component that drives the tractor around for me, is it also not fair to expect that I can use that tractor just as a tractor if I don't have internet access at my farm? It's a different story if it's eg. an Alexa device thats primary purpose is to be connected to the internet. If a device is in a class of product that doesn't necessarily need a cloud connection/ac…
If when you bought the tractor, the tractor company said “this tractor requires that you have internet access and keep the tractor online”, and you bought it, then no, it’s not fair of you to expect to just disregard that. Now, if you want to take a screwdriver and serial cable to the tractor and hack the crap out it, and you manage to bypass the requirement, have at it. You own the tractor. They can feel free to voi…
Companies have determined that's what they're going to offer the customer and they'll brick any attempts at modifying the hardware. They're making money refining their AI and selling off customer data, so why not?
You need the high end tractors because they're the only machines that meet the requirements of what you're doing.
This is what the legislation folks want to stave off. It's in a similar vein to the right to repair movement (which is dealing with similar restrictions right now, in the real world - see John Deere tractors).
Just a reminder Oculus is a company founded on taking tech from other companies and getting away with it. Don't give them money, don't buy their devices. Getting acquired by facebook and turning the VR sets into spyware and facebook funnels just makes them worse. If you want to be ethical get an HMD from someone other than Oculus/Facebook. I wouldn't give them a dime. Sources: alan yates (posting as vk2zay on reddit)…
> with the explanation that hardware is just so worthless anyway compared to online software sales, there was no other choice. This is especially strange since Apple makes tons of money off online software sales tied to their hardware. I believe several other companies (like all the console manufacturers in the game space that Valve is in) do to. It's fundamentally a very bad call.
they're getting there but they're not exactly there yet. I think oculus taking their research tech and turning it into a $2b acquisition and a threat to steam because of its closed garden was a big wake up call.
We'll see how they do in the future I guess.
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If when you bought the tractor, the tractor company said “this tractor requires that you have internet access and keep the tractor online”, and you bought it, then no, it’s not fair of you to expect to just disregard that. Now, if you want to take a screwdriver and serial cable to the tractor and hack the crap out it, and you manage to bypass the requirement, have at it. You own the tractor. They can feel free to voi…
Okay, now picture a world where all high end tractors have this functionality. Companies have determined that's what they're going to offer the customer and they'll brick any attempts at modifying the hardware. They're making money refining their AI and selling off customer data, so why not? You need the high end tractors because they're the only machines that meet the requirements of what you're doing. This is what…
I appreciate that folks in this thread are attempting to propose legislation to stave off behavior they believe is dangerous. My concern is that using legislation in this way has knock on effects that make free society radically worse, because at its core it requires being OK with using government to restrict what technology combinations are legal to bring to market.
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Yes. If you choose not to take Facebook’s offering, you don’t get access to the things they and others build for their product. Do we want to make exclusivity deals between businesses illegal?
I don't think we need to do that, but we do need to make sure corporations don't use the power they gain through those deals to make you endure the privacy abuses that come with a cloud requirement.
For example, when AT&T owned all the telecoms equipment in the US, other companies couldn't make new products using their system (like answering machines or modems). Having anyone able to design, connect, use and sell new devices on top of their infrastructure is an incredibly important feature.
And facebook knows that. They launched facebook on the internet (which is an open platform). Facebook couldn't have been created in the first place if not for that.
Facebook owes its existence to open platforms. Lets not allow the train of innovation to stop here.
Facebook keeps asking Congress to make laws. How about this one: Peripherals, including mice, monitors, keyboards, VR headsets or any other device used to process input or output from a computer, may NOT be connected to any cloud service with an account. Any such cloud connections MUST be for software updates only and software updates MUST be capable of permanent opt-out without any loss of usage. I mean I grew up wi…
Why is it desirable for Congress to make laws limiting how electronics manufacturers can design their electronics? If Facebook wants to make a VR headset that requires that you upload a monthly video of you doing the chicken dance, just don’t buy their product. Attempting to use government to make private entities build the kinds of technology you like is a pretty heavy hammer to drop on individual freedoms.
All-consuming capitalism isn't a public liberty, and if companies are in the mind of lowering costs by using cancer-inducing materials, slave work, corruption or indeed trading people's very identities, then it's in the purview of political institutions to intervene.
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Why is it desirable for Congress to make laws limiting how electronics manufacturers can design their electronics? If Facebook wants to make a VR headset that requires that you upload a monthly video of you doing the chicken dance, just don’t buy their product. Attempting to use government to make private entities build the kinds of technology you like is a pretty heavy hammer to drop on individual freedoms.
> just don’t buy their product. That works in theory, but in practice when all the products from all the vendors work that way, you no longer have a choice. Plenty of examples like that - Try buying a TV that's not a "smart" TV nowdays, you basically can't. If you want a good quality picture, then it's also coming with telemetry and in many cases advertisements, too.
I see these contradictory narratives on HN.