I have a security camera by a very popular brand, and much to my surprise, I was suddenly unable to use it unless I updated to the latest firmware.
The thing is, the update software said that I was on the latest version.
It took days, physical intervention with a ladder to gain access to the camera, and the company tech support, to force an update to the camera, allowing me to use it once again.
That made me realize that the expensive security cameras I’m using aren’t mine, and might as well be rentals. Because the company could, at any time, render my entire system useless unless I meet their demands, which could be a forced subscription or worse.
The enshittification of paid hardware has no bounds!
What’s the brand we should look out for?
This specific brand is Reolink, but I have no doubt that other brands do the same thing.
We have decided to charge for what was previously included… Substantially changing the parameters of the established contract
Suck it
Corporations are basically just criminals now
No one remembers how vulnerable windows server and windows desktop OS’s were before they revamped updates?
Forced updates are great. The internet is safer.
This is a good point, but the issue is that vendors have abused this need by not just pushing security updates, but also regular rewrites that make the products more invasive/full of language model shit - Exhibit A being anything at all from Microsoft
You can’t maintain security and feature changes separately long term.
Windows itself already splits those up in security and feature updates…
And why not ? Care to explain ?
In a sane development model there is not any technical problem to do it.
Debian: am I a joke to you?
(security upgrades are separate from everything else)
Security packed and system updates is one thing.
The constant reorganization of functions and apps and layouts and compatibility is a very different one.
It is a problem that the operating system is controlled by the largest apps and service company that make money from user data in various forms and keep pushing their business model in every device core operations.
And fuck fuck fuck that Google keeps trying to force Gemeni in every update. Let me keep using Google Assistant and stop making it worse by stripping out functionality or replacing shortcuts to Gemeni. Gemeni can still not do the very few things I want my voice assistant to do, namely set alarms and play music on whatever music streaming service I prefer to use.
Until they force an update that bricks your device because they want money from you upgrading hardware
Are you the one user of this OS Server side? /s
Why did they write such shit software in the first place? No, they don’t get off the hook.
Processors change, libraries become deprecated or vulnerable, design paradigms shift, and new integrations become possible that weren’t there when the application first launched. Should we blame old house builders for using asbestos when they didn’t know how poorly that would end up?
Processors change? Non-sequitur. Spectre an its ilk arrived on the scene at least a decade after MS had developed a reputation for shipping shit code.
Libraries become deprecated or vulnerable? Non-sequitur. Whose libraries? Who deprecated them? Remember, this is a company that personified Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. If they picked shitty vendors for libraries and did no due diligence on that source code, why are the externalities foisted upon users? Also, libraries don’t “become vulnerable” through some magical process. Either the bug was there from the beginning, or a shitty change was introduced and not caught.
Design paradigms shift? And this is an excuse for writing shitty code? I don’t buy it.
New integrations require new code and that means taking into consideration the new shape of the system. Sounds like they did a really shitty job of that and they make it the user’s problem.
Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos? Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don’t believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623
Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.
So, no, MS still does not get a pass.
Should we blame the old house builders for using asbestos?
Unequivocally, yes. Those shitheads knew or should have known. Don’t believe me? Here is a handy link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169500224003623
Do note the decades between when it was understood the shit was dangerous and when the decline as a building material happened.
I suppose he was referring to the ones that used it before it was understood.
All software is either shit to begin with or becomes shit when it gets big enough. If a Linux distro were forced to maintain as much legacy cruft as Windows it would be shit too.
False dichotomy. That was a business decision with externalities foisted upon users.
Let’s look at your code from 20+ years ago?
Go ahead, bro. It’s on CPAN.
Ok whatever dude, you need to provide more details than “go ahead.” 😏
I think I’ll continue to enjoy my pseudonymity for the time being. Besides, I could link you to some rando’s modules, claim to be that person, and you’d have no way of verifying anyhow since this nick has no resemblance to the handle I used. But let’s just say, I shipped well-tested, thoroughly documented modules with very high “kwalitee” used by fortune 100 companies.
Remember the early 2000s? Updates would regularly add shitty bloat and break features. Upgrading to the latest version of anything was always a bad move.
It’s only maybe the last ten years or so that we have expected updates to fix shit and not break it…
That bad times are back, unfortunately. In all aspects of life.
If you have an asshole that does a bad job for a handyman, you will learn to fear the fixes.
It’s not the regularity that is the problem, is the people delivering the fixes. Change manufacturers and software providers. I promise you there is software that is reliable, doesn’t get worse over time, respects your freedom, and treats you like a human being instead of a conduit from your bank account to theirs.
You can enjoy software and computers actually.
As in, switch to Linux and learn to enjoy using computers again.
The hard part is everyone pretending it isn’t on purpose
Congrats you discovered Enshittification
edit: that term encapsulates more than just complaining how shitty everything is. It’s not a “petty gripe”.
Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers (such as advertisers), and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.
On the other hand DoS attacks frequently depend on systems that haven’t had security updates to build up their zombie army.
Yet updates on commercial platforms* rarely allow you to separate between security upgrades and everything else.
The android update forever crippled my OnePlus 3. It used to sleep an unlimited number of applications in the background and went to not being able to run two apps without killing the second one
You only notice the bad updates. There are probably over a hundred good ones for each annoying one that you notice.
Designed obsolescence.
This person has no sense of security.
