A future without your own gadgets. Is it possible?
They started talking about the transformation of things into services in 2016 as a prospect that will become a reality in the near future. And it seems that quarantine restrictions, the rapid development of technology and a shift in priorities in people’s lives has accelerated this process.
Maksym Prokhorov, founder and managing partner PM PARTNERS
Renting things = happiness … or still addiction
Something like this can be reduced to what humanity will come to in the next decade. The lease argument is that consumerism is tiresome. For example, having your own home for the younger generation is no longer such an unambiguous goal. In a sense, it’s easier not to own things, then you have less commitment and responsibility. However, there is a big problem here — the installed proprietary software, in other words, the one that is owned by its authors and copyright holders. They have the exclusive right to modify. If you do not delve into this topic, it seems that there is nothing special here. And yet I advise you to understand in more detail, then it will become clearer that even now, when buying a thing, in some cases we actually simply provide ourselves with access to the software.
There are many examples of developer / manufacturer dependency. By purchasing a smartphone, speakers or an exercise bike, it seems that we get full ownership of it. In fact, we pay only for access to the software, that is, we actually rent a gadget. A one-time payment for a purchase is not profitable for companies, so the equipment is planned to become outdated. We can perfectly follow this trend, for example, by the actions of Apple or entertainment companies that launch streaming services instead of licensing their content.
As a result, the equipment itself ceases to be a useful thing, and you, as its owner, do not decide anything. Only the company determines when to stop releasing important updates and what to do with an outdated device. This is how a service-oriented world is becoming.
Why can companies do this?
In the United States, a law passed in 1988 is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In Europe, the analogue is the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). Both of these documents are intended to protect copyright on the Internet from piracy. But as often happens, good intentions lead to abuse. In this case, to the restriction of freedom of speech and fair competition.
It is because of this that big tech companies can void your warranty if you reflash your device, or force you to pay more to repair a broken gadget at an authorized service center.
Every three years, the US Copyright Office reviews requests for exceptions to the DMCA prohibition. In particular, they are submitted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF, founded in 1990), a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world through litigation. Today, the EFF draws on the unique expertise of leading technologists, activists and lawyers to defend free speech on the Internet, fight illegal surveillance, protect users and innovators, and support technologies that advance freedom.
For example, one of the most recent achievements of this organization in 2018 was five exemptions from the DMCA:
1. Repair, diagnostics and intervention in any device with software, including IoT devices, appliances, computers, peripherals, toys, vehicles and environmental automation systems.
2. Opening of personal computing devices, including smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and personal assistants such as the Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod.
3. Using excerpts from video discs or streaming video for criticism or commentary, without restriction for users (non-commercial viewers, documentary filmmakers, some students), which at that time were imposed by the US Copyright Office.
4. Research into the safety of software of all kinds found in consumer electronics, medical devices, vehicles and more.
5. Legal use of video encrypted with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP, applies to content transmitted over HDMI cables used in home video equipment).
Sketch of a world dominated by gadget rentals
If there is no confrontation, which is described above, the tech giants will have their hands completely untied, and they will very quickly begin to control virtually our entire life. “Smart home”, self-driving cars, robotic production, automated logistics, personal PCs, smartphones, medicine and much more, based on their software, are less and less ours.
Imagine what will happen right now if the house manager locks the magnetic key or the access system to your residential complex, and the car manufacturer locks the electronic key to your car. This will cause a lot of inconvenience, but for now you can find a way out of the situation. However, the more things with proprietary software appear in our life, the less we can influence such collapses. This means that we become controlled, although the illusion of freedom persists.
