Iām surprised by the reaction @sil, @jeremy, and @jonobacon had to @bryanlundukeās argument in the first segment. I expect these comments from people in the general tech community, but Iām surprised to see them coming from such large figures in the open source world. Iām also surprised because usually I agree with whatever @jeremy says because heās a pragmatist, whereas @bryanlunduke has no problems with being more of an ideological purist.
Nonetheless, I empathize with Bryanās point here. That the Xbox One requires an Internet connection to the extent that it does is a conscious decision that is not necessary to deliver a product that lets users play games and use Internet services (the Wii U, for example, does not limit you in this way). A broader example of this would be comparing modern day open source desktops to proprietary ones. The latter collects more information about users and uses the Internet to enforce DRM in a way we donāt see in the former. Thatās thanks to open source developers making the explicit decision (and as Bryan argues, ethical decision) to uphold certain standards of privacy and transparency. Those of us who use open source desktops arenāt sitting around missing out on the technological innovations of the closed sourced ecosystem. We donāt get certain software, sure, but we are still Internet users and participants in the digital world. And we can do more with our Linux desktops today than we could back when the original Xbox launched without giving up our freedoms.
Another example would be the way mobile OSes are designed relative to desktop OSes. The latter (even the closed source ones) will let you do a great deal of work without constant support from a company. Even Chromebooks will let you continue to browse the web and manage files if Google were to stop supporting them. But our phones are so heavily intertwined with online services that they are significantly hindered if those servers shut down. Google Play services is integrated into so many aspects of Android that a large number of apps would simply stop functioning even though theyāre not explicitly tied to a service.
To suggest that mobile OSes should be developed more similarly to desktop OSes is not to suggest we go back in time or move into some fairy tale land. Itās to acknowledge that the values and practices weāve come to accept in certain markets should be actively challenged and rejected. Itās to acknowledge that some products are still currently developed in a way that doesnāt require giving up so much access and control. To suggest that modern computing and Internet usage requires us to be so beholden to every company that makes a product buys into and encourages a developmental model that all four hosts agreed, to varying extents, is not desirable.
As to what we do about it, there, I again agree with @jeremy that transparency is the answer here. Get companies to be upfront about what theyāre selling. Itās okay for a consumer to opt to buy a service that comes with a product if thatās what they want. As long as the company is being straightforward, I wouldnāt call this unethical.
That said, I do agree with @bryanlunduke that we as consumers should stop buying smartwatches that effectively turn into digital watches with crappy battery life the moment Google or Apple stops supporting them. We shouldnāt invest in fitness trackers and scales that give us no way to use the advertised features without giving our data to the manufacturers. We shouldnāt accept a market where āsmartā TVs donāt last nearly as long as dumb ones from our parentsā generation entirely because the makers have no interest in making products that will last longer than their own personal desire to make money off of us. And opting out does not mean not getting to use watches, scales, activity trackers, or TVs. It just encourages development of technology that better respects users, the likes of which we see regularly made for our Linux distributions, traditional digital cameras, Bluetooth speakers, and other products where companies havenāt yet convinced us that itās okay to expect our device to only last a year or two.