Can't you trivially reframe the initial purchase as being subsidized by that license? Your $200 smart knife sharpener would be $300 if it weren't recording audio 24/7 (for VAD, surely!)

I don't like it either but here we are

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devn0ll 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I do not think the value difference is $100 ;-) In fact, the longer you use it, the more money they can make off of you. (In that sense, that $200 is already WAY too expensive to start ;-) )

So yeah, reversing this would make the most sense. The default is: local data only and not connected. They need to pay me to get data.

Just like car companies, phones, etc, should be forced to do that as well.

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godelski 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you frame it that way you need to offer the other version.

I do wonder how many people would buy non-spy versions of devices given the option. More specifically, what that differential in price would be too. At worst it would be interesting to have a price explicitly stating what our data is worth. Many people actually internalize that it's not that valuable, but doing this would make it explicit.

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0xffff2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sure, that's basically how Kindle pricing works ($X with ads, or $X+$Y without ads) and it's infinitely better having the choice. If Amazon ever gets rid of the without ad version they will lose me as a customer overnight.

Likewise, there are a whole lot of products that don't have an "unsubsidized" version that I simply refuse to purchase (or have purchased and returned after confirming that they will not work when locked in IOT jail where they can't talk to the internet.)

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bragr 5 hours ago | parent [-]

>If Amazon ever gets rid of the without ad version they will lose me as a customer overnight.

Didn't they already remove the option for a completely ad free prime video experience or am I hallucinating that? They have such a ridiculous hold on the e reader market I feel like it is just matter of the next down quarter.

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morsch 3 hours ago | parent [-]

They seem to own 75% of the market, and I think you can get pretty much every book on every device, right? Of course your existing library is locked-in; ideally, that'd be illegal.

	▲	Xelbair an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Worse - they actually can remove books that you've purchased. Not only revoke license for future downloads - but actually remove them from your device. Ironically they did that to 1984 book.

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immibis 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They should be forced to present both options, and the price difference must equal the revenue they actually make from spying.

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throwuxiytayq 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We’ve lived with companies that didn’t need to take pics of my dick while I’m shitting to subsidize their operation for as long as companies were a thing. Anyone saying this dick pic status quo is inevitable and necessary is too VC-brained to be allowed to run a company.

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krageon an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not, things haven't gotten that much relatively cheaper (have you looked at phones? The biggest pieces of spyware you can buy?). This is a line corporations like to feed us so we feel guilty about being bad instead of putting that where it belongs: every CEO.