There really should be a law about this; if a company abandons a cloud-dependent device, that company should be required by law to unlock the bootloader / open source the firmware / etc.
I always advocate a good hybrid approach; flex fiscal policy and aggressively tax bad behavior. Eg "Expected value removed from economy is $100m, govt. wants 20% of that". The incentive would push companies to keep infrastructure operational, albeit with a low budget, because it would be cheaper than paying a decently-sized one-time tax. Also if fewer people use the service, in 5-10 years the market value could be $1m, again making it cheaper to decommission so long as you can show it isn't being used.
3 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 12.6 ms ] threadI really hope we see a counter movement away from walled-garden devices like this.