For the device manufacturers, the obvious solution is to sell them as general-purpose computers. You can already get devices that had started out as Raspberry Pi clones but evolved into excellent DIY network appliances, with multiple high-speed Ethernet and SSD ports that are great for running a NAS, proxy server, firewall, or all three, and more. Rarely do they have good WiFi, but if manufacturers start selling hardware that has been traditionally sold as a locked-down routers or access points, but include a generic Linux installation, it'll compete will well with the aforementioned hardware.

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ssl-3 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Companies want to sell what consumers want to buy. But the average consumer doesn't want a general-purpose computer for this job; they instead want to buy a "router".

If companies market the devices as something other than "routers" then consumers will not buy them for routing duty.

(Meanwhile, the non-average people who want to use general-purpose computers as homespun router/NAS/do-all boxes are already aware of how this all works...and many of us have been doing it this way for decades. (Often, this happens alongside dedicated access points that do have good wifi radios.))

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dmonitor 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The average consumer doesn't want a router full stop. Their ISP hands them an all-in-one modem+router+switch+WAP box and they just accept that the internet lives inside of it.

I have roommates who are engineers and I had to explain to them the difference between Wi-fi access point and LAN when I replaces our wireless router with a router + 3 APs.

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nubinetwork 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But the average consumer doesn't want a general-purpose computer for this job; they instead want to buy a "router".

So start your own company called usa router co, and sell some random arm board with a preinstalled router image... the end user won't know the difference.

	▲	ssl-3 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, for sure. That's easy enough; it's what GL.inet does: They sell router-shaped computers that run a skinned openwrt -- out of the box. (There's been some questions about GPL compliance over the years, but that's a separate issue.) And superficially, it sounds like a straight-forward thing for me or anyone else to do here in the states, but things get murky quickly: What differentiates a foreign-made router from a US-made router? Can I get some flunky push the button in his studio apartment in Idaho to flash open (but globally-sourced!) firmware onto some boxes from Alibaba (in exchange for startup promises) and call that good enough? Do I have to spin up the boards here in the States? And the ICs, too? How about the passive jelly-bean parts like the capacitors and resistors and the antennas? What of the rest of the device? Like, things such as the housing, the packaging, the power supply, and the included ethernet cable: Do I need to source those from domestic US production or is it OK if they're foreign-made components? Do I have to produce the software in the States? (If so, Linux is right out.) Where is the line drawn? How is the line shaped?