Comment by cogman10
1 day ago
If you aren't looking at capturing 100% ewaste, then simple laws around liability and penalties for reduced functionality is all you'd need.
Simple things like "if an electronic device, through no fault of the owner, can no longer perform it's main function, then the owner is due a full refund. A company may escape the refund by placing all software required to run the product in the public domain."
It'd miss cases like fly by night companies, but you could catch big players like google disabling their thermostats for non-hardware reasons.
The only thing you'd achieve doing that is to change the "main function" of a device to somethings silly, like a thermostat being sold as an art decor with the optional additional of functioning as a thermostat too.
> change the "main function" of a device to somethings silly, like a thermostat being sold as an art decor
that seems like it can be addressed by making sure that the regulators who enforce these laws have more object permanence than a 6 month old baby.
like, if I try to sell a "metal sculpture" that by sheer coincidence is capable of firing 9mm ammunition, I'm going to have the ATF knocking on my door real quick, and they're not going to be fooled by me claiming "no that's art"
Probably much easier when the seller is in China and selling the product in the US on Amazon.
Why would the ATF go after them instead of YOU?
> making sure that the regulators who enforce these laws
But then again, one problem is that Big Tech has enough money and power to completely overwhelm the regulators...
This is why the legal system is run by people with brains and reasoning and not python scripts. A real person will see that a thermostat is actually a thermostat.