I think we need to collectively understand that freedom and privacy have a cost. That $200 phone is subsidized with the spyware baked into it and the expected income of future repairs and upgrades, ad sales, etc. a $2k phone made with modular parts and software based on open source has a much higher up-front cost, won’t be quite as sleek, will require some technical understanding, but a much lower maintenance cost.
Game consoles, phones, computers, cars and even refrigerators. If some company now considers the product a loss-leader, we should collectively shun it.
It’s a hard sell, though, when everything is super expensive and things like phones and cars are pretty much requirements for living in some places.
And even worse when you are poor or simply cannot pay.
We really need to find the square of the circle on this, where we can have total freedom, low cost, high modularity and grassroots origin.
I think that an progressivist approach would be the correct (basically, not static prices, but dynamical prices: you’re rich? Then you pay more; you’re poor? Then you pay less or don’t pay at all. The ones in the top do subsidize the ones on the bottom).
But of course, that’s hard asf to do.
I think we need to collectively understand that freedom and privacy have a cost. That $200 phone is subsidized with the spyware baked into it and the expected income of future repairs and upgrades, ad sales, etc. a $2k phone made with modular parts and software based on open source has a much higher up-front cost, won’t be quite as sleek, will require some technical understanding, but a much lower maintenance cost.
Game consoles, phones, computers, cars and even refrigerators. If some company now considers the product a loss-leader, we should collectively shun it.
It’s a hard sell, though, when everything is super expensive and things like phones and cars are pretty much requirements for living in some places.
And even worse when you are poor or simply cannot pay.
We really need to find the square of the circle on this, where we can have total freedom, low cost, high modularity and grassroots origin.
I think that an progressivist approach would be the correct (basically, not static prices, but dynamical prices: you’re rich? Then you pay more; you’re poor? Then you pay less or don’t pay at all. The ones in the top do subsidize the ones on the bottom). But of course, that’s hard asf to do.