Why don't we just pay for services instead of buying products? This pushes the problem of maintenance to the service provider, thus making it more efficient and thus cheaper and more environment-friendly. Also, it completely eliminates the problem of planned obsolescence.
There are some downsides, such as that usage of the service outside the contract becomes impossible, so contracts should be sufficiently broad (and not targeting just the average people). And you don't "own" your product (which could be a psychological problem). But I guess that's about it.
Now, when Steam decides that you have violated their ToS in some way, they will close your account and lock you out of everything you bought. This happens, rarely, but happens.
Do you want to be dependant on an idea of a corporation that they will treat you fair?
Are you OK to give away your washing machine and oven just because you had troubles with finances and you missed one payment?
We're more dependent on corporations when we buy things, since we have given them all the money upfront. A service model gives us more leverage.
As someone who had to throw away a washing machine because the company wouldn't service it, I would have very much preferred a rental model where the loss would have been theirs.
To flip your question: Are you okay not being able to buy a washing machine because you couldn't make a significant one-time payment? Are you okay with your investment going waste because the company wouldn't service it? I would say no to both.
> We're more dependent on corporations when we buy things, since we have given them all the money upfront. A service model gives us more leverage.
No, we aren't and no, it doesn't. Buying things up-front means your interaction with a corporation is brief and to the point. With service model, they get to gouge you for money and restrict the things you can do with the item you now don't own, but rent.
> Are you okay not being able to buy a washing machine because you couldn't make a significant one-time payment?
There are plenty of ways to amortize that using third parties that have no interest in limiting your control over the washing machine.
Also, it's you who get to choose when to do the purchase. Once you enter a contract, you'd better have a stable paycheck for the entire duration of it, or you'll be SOL.
That's wrong. A service model gives me leverage — I stop paying the rent whenever I want and return the washing machine. Maybe you have a different service model in mind, like a contract, in which case we'd naturally disagree, but I'm not talking about such a model.
Neither do I care about my flexibility to modify my washing machine. All I care is that it washes my clothes well.
> That's wrong. A service model gives me leverage — I stop paying the rent whenever I want and return the washing machine.
It's more inconvenient to you not to be able to use a washing machine when you need it than it is for a service provider to have a random customer unable to pay them on time.
It seems that I didn't explain the model I have in mind: the washing machine would be installed in my house, and I pay them a monthly fee, which I can discontinue any time, at which point they'll come take away their washing machine.
In this model, I have the washing machine to use whenever I need it. If it breaks, or if I need a bigger capacity model, or I'm not happy with its performance, I can immediately switch to another supplier. Paying for the entire machine up front closes my options. They already have my money, so they can offer poor service and get away with it.
The entire point of the article is that you (or a local technician) should be allowed and able to repair your washing machine and not rely on the company exclusively to fix it. Having to throw it away is exactly because you don't really own it without the right to repair. You "own" a machine that it is impossible and illegal to fix or modify, which is not ownership at all, which means you already are renting it as a service, the company has just lied to you by redefining ownership in a way that makes them more money.
Not true — it's neither impossible nor illegal to get someone to fix my washing machine. It's just that I don't know who's reliable, and will it cause severe problems, like a flood. Or will it break up when rotating at high speed, hurting whoever is next to it? I merely chose to throw it away and buy another one.
The point of my comment above, and amelius's if I understand correctly, is that a service model eliminates this risk from the buyer. I'll be able to get another washing machine without incurring a financial loss.
What matters at the end of the day is having a working, safe, reliable washing machine. Having a right to repair is only a means to this end, and not an end to itself. A service model is another means to this end. Don't confuse the means for the ends and entertain only one means.
Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people.
Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
> Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people.
Can you come up with a concrete scenario?
> Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
Yeah, but now we're fighting for the "right to repair". And we need to fight for the "right of a clean environment". And a "right of no planned obsolescence". Seems much more complicated to me than just getting the incentives right in the first place.
I am afraid this solution could kill second-hand market with "service providers" not happy to dispose of old products to keep the prices high.
Would iPhone allow the second-hand market for their phones? Not likely, thus keeping a huge part of the less fortunate population out of the possibility to get hands-on premium products.
Your model could be an addition to the current service model, not a replacement.
The current events cited in the article serve as examples.
There aren’t a lot of universal human “rights” that are self-evident in the context of common law, but the few that are ought to be held as absolutely sacred and inalienable. Property ownership is one of them.
You can say that again. Just look at the John Deere debacle that's been happening for an exceptionally good example of why this is a terrible idea. Physical good = ownership = full end-user control. Anything less is dangerous for consumers.
The problem is that keeping things the old way apparently doesn't work out too well for the environment. Moving to services aligns the incentives such that the environment can benefit, and the use of products can become cheaper too.
So, imho, what we should do is give customers who use services better rights.
Yeah, companies forcing people to buy new crap all the time because the old stuff is discontinued and customers are locked out from fixing it themselves is definitely good for the environment.
I don't know why you are being downvoted for asking a question, but I think it's incredibly important to educate people on the dangers of your proposal, i.e. to answer it.
A short answer is "everything Stallman has ever warned us about (most of which has already come to pass)."
A longer answer contains many, many reasons, so I'll just throw out some paragraphs.
Ownership is more than psychological, it's about your right and ability to do what you want with your stuff. It's also about whether your stuff is designed to help you or to work against you. "Do what you want" includes modifications, repair, and any usage that you might want even if not officially sanctioned by the company. If you don't own your stuff, you can't control whether it's tracking you and sending back data about you. You can't control whether one day the company goes out of business, or gets bought by a new owner, or decides for liability reasons or whatever that they should remotely disable or recall the product (maybe at the moment you need it most).
There's also a reason that "rents" are a hugely important concept in economics. In general, the renter is open to exploitation by the rentee who continually makes money not by creating additional new welfare/value but due to a historical circumstance, i.e. being the one who originally owned the thing being rented.
More issues: paying for services actually accentuates the problem of planned obsolescence, because it gives the service-provider the ability to terminate or alter terms of the deal at intervals (or immediately via software update) thus virtually forcing an upgrade.
When products are built to actually last, buying is perfectly environmentally-friendly. If you look at a mid-20th-century family's home, almost everything in it was built to last for decades -- furniture, appliances, vehicles, even clothing (with appropriate repairs). That was a result of the purchasing equilibrium. Many people have had to move toward the renting equilibrium where they don't expect to own things permanently, and the stuff they own is crap.
I'll stop there, but reiterate that the number 1 issue is ownership and control. I suggest you try the thought experiment of placing goods on a scale from "most ownership" (purchased for long-term reasons, customizable, repairable) to "least ownership" (comes with terms and conditions, may be updated or changed by the company at any time), and evaluate each good by how long it lasts, environmental-friendliness, how much it respects the rights of the user versus the wishes of the producer, and how much it is subject to planned obsolescence. (Starter: the iPhone is on the far end in all categories.)
So you don't think that we can capture all of what you said in laws that protect the consumer?
Also, how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you. E.g. paying someone to do your laundry instead of buying a washing machine. The person you hire can choose any means of doing your laundry, including putting a washing machine in your home.
If that's causing problems with exploitation, isn't that a fundamental flaw in our economy, rather than with the idea of preferring services over products?
> Also, how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you. E.g. paying someone to do your laundry instead of buying a washing machine. The person you hire can choose any means of doing your laundry, including putting a washing machine in your home.
It isn't, and this illustrates another problem: with service model, you're much more tied to having a stable income source. If you're temporarily not able to pay someone, they won't come to do the work for you. If you're not able to keep paying for the service, the provider will remotely suspend or terminate it. Whereas, if you own a device, you can keep using it even though you're 3 months out of a job, with no new one in sight.
> So you don't think that we can capture all of what you said in laws that protect the consumer?
I'm not saying it's impossible to picture a society where this happens, but it's not very reachable from where we are now. We're struggling to get down basics like repairing your own devices. Nor is it a particularly desirable society compared to a society where everyone owns and controls all their own stuff.
> how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you
I'm not sure what this question has to do with what I wrote. I don't want either one. I want to pay once for a quality washing machine that I can repair, use when, where, and how I want to. For another example, I want a bicycle that fits my exact size, style, speed, and safety preferences, that I can pay for once and keep repaired and in good condition and resell later on, rather than throwing money at some company year after year to ride awful one-size-fits-none rent-a-bikes. Those bikes are useful for many scenarios but a bad replacement for long-term ownership.
(edit) For example in the washing machine scenario, the service I employ to launder clothes can easily decide to hike their rates for all clothes not purchased from Banana Republic, or they can sell data about my clothes preferences to advertisers, or they can make me sign terms of service that give bad compensation for damaged clothes or delayed washing. Their incentives are often misaligned from mine; they aren't usually acting in my best interests. I guess you'll say "but competition will magically fix that", however, if we look at the real world, most markets don't have enough competition for that to be true.
> If that's causing problems with exploitation, isn't that a fundamental flaw in our economy, rather than with the idea of preferring services over products?
I don't understand what you're saying here. It sounds akin to arguments that roads should all be privatized, where the fact that nobody would build roads to rural homes gets written off as some problem with the economy rather than a flaw in the idea itself. Or similarly, sounds like you're advocating a system that you know clearly wouldn't work because you are able to picture some idealized version of society where it might.
I had this album on Spotify or Deezer, one of my favourites. One day something happened and it became un-listenable. It's like Sony came and picked a CD from my shelf. Well luckily there is YouTube. But with actual tools, like tractors, it's different. Tools tend to get personalised/modified to fit the particular routines of their users.
Because then there would be no products. And no, it would not eliminate so-called "planned obsolescence" (which isn't a real issue with quality products like Apple's anyway); it would just shift any such motives and actions to a different income stream and a different company.
There are some downsides, such as that usage of the service outside the contract becomes impossible, so contracts should be sufficiently broad (and not targeting just the average people). And you don't "own" your product (which could be a psychological problem). But I guess that's about it.