If there's one thing I'm very optimistic about with AI, it's the de-bricking of bricked things, giving new life to legacy/unsupported software and hardware, or just getting around shitty practices like this.

Seems very promising. I have a home recording studio, and there's a small revolution going on with people cloning subscription-based stuff. Some brands are notorious for making expensive equipment which they just stop supporting after 10 years, sometimes rendering them obsolete. Or tacking ridiculous licensing mechanism onto the equipment.

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askvictor a day ago | parent [-]

> just getting around shitty practices like this

That is the hope; although we'll end up with either companies doubling down on cryptography to prevent this (though they will inevitably leave some holes), or changing business models, where the hardware loss leader -> subscription is no longer a thing, so hardware costs go up

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Gigachad a day ago | parent | next [-]

On the flip side, there are companies going the other way and just dumping the hardware on the market expecting the community to vibecode up the firmware. We had open hardware like this before but it was not practical for anyone to actually do anything with it unless there was a massive community maintaining firmwares.

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kalinkochnev a day ago | parent [-]

What companies are you referring to? I completely agree this is the future.

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Gigachad a day ago | parent | next [-]

Behringer just announced they will be releasing an all in one DJ deck with no software but the freedom to install whatever you want on it, for a tiny fraction of the price of the existing options. There's https://thefirmwarehub.com/ with a whole load of custom firmwares for a $60~ synth. And the whole industry of retro emulator handheld consoles coming out of China where the first thing you do after unboxing is replacing the stock OS with a custom one from github.

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ileonichwiesz 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Most of them aren’t well known legacy companies, but rather random Chinese hardware manufacturers. The synth music world is currently going through a big shift with several new cheap open-firmware options, and none of them are produced by a company anyone would recognise.

	▲	embedding-shape 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Most of them aren’t well known legacy companies, but rather random Chinese hardware manufacturers. The synth music world is currently going through a big shift with several new cheap open-firmware options, and none of them are produced by a company anyone would recognise. Maybe to an outsider it seems like none is being made by companies you recognize, but to us in music, lots of big brands are changing tune. Erica Synths (big in both desktop gear and modular synths), Polyend, Akai/MPC, Moog and more. Sadly, Elektron is not yet on the wagon of change, but surely they'll find their ways soon too I hope. But to say none of them are "well known" is very far from the truth, Moog is probably as "legacy" as any brand can get and still sell hardware today.

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AlexandrB 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> changing business models, where the hardware loss leader -> subscription is no longer a thing, so hardware costs go up

I pray for the day! This business model is a fingernail's thickness away from lying. It's outright lying when applied retroactively to products that used to not need a subscription.