Science News!
Added 2024-04-10 11:48:11 +0000 UTCTime for some nerd news....
Comments
This trend toward away from "Right To Own" and having to pay ongoing fees or rents in order to keep your devices operating is horrifying. It's not just with software or hardware, but there is another frightening trend for private equity and financial institutions to buy up homes for sale and rent them out rather than leave them for sale on the real estate market. And with the huge amounts of capital and political power at their disposal, there is no way for ordinary folks to fight it. What these trends all lead up to is basically the wealthy individuals and corporations increasing their wealth and power and producing a new form of feudalism. This time it's not "The Royals" with the power, but the wealthy and large corporations. As you mentioned, in the 1950s, auto companies used all their PR abilities to get people to buy new cars each year or two. At least they didn't disable your current car to force you to buy a new one--they just used advertising and peer pressure. I'm sure you recall the good old days when you didn't buy a telephone, but rented it from "The Phone Company." That practice seemed to work well in those days, but there's something more sinister in how that practice of renting hardware has become these days. Okay, rant over. ππ
Mark Hesse
2024-04-10 22:13:45 +0000 UTC
