I must confess to being on your side Andy - the idea of something that stops working at the first sign of internet failure or supplier bankruptcy feels like a recipe for a disaster at some point, and I go out of my way to avoid it.

Equally we both have worked with hardware of the sort that does a lot of damage if control is lost, and that is a different sort of design.

However it is not a popular view.

The idea of posting  the tons of now useless devices back to the company would be appealing if they had a physical address, but I suspect in many cases the offices etc are all rented and the kit made abroad and there is simply no provision. A change in WEEE like directive would  not work if the subsidiary company has folded.

Mike.

PS just seem this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62142208

it appears that BMW drivers can rent the option of over the network activated heated seats.  I am clearly alone in seeing a great hacking/ denial of service flaw with this, even ignoring the register quote that "it may feel like buying a mug and having to rent the handle". Which is a sentiment I agree with as well, but I do not have a BMW and probably never will.

mapj1 said:

. A change in WEEE like directive would  not work if the subsidiary company has folded.

Oh absolutely. As you can imagine I was thinking more of the business decision "we'll just drop that service line because we want to jump into a more profitable business" without having to take responsibility for the consequences...even then I'm sure it would be incredibly hard to police in practice...

Yes I dread the day (which I'm sure will come) when there will be no choice but to buy a car where aspects of it can be controlled remotely, not (entirely) because I don't trust suppliers to manage the remote control correctly, but because i don't want to change a five year old car just because a supplier's got bored of supporting it...or gone bust.  

mapj1 said:

However it is not a popular view.

Absolutely, since the early 1980s the MBA mantra has been "provide services, not products", which this is all tied up in. As I've mentioned before on here, I consider myself very lucky to have worked in two very different industries both of which were based around supplying electronic products that would keep operating for 30, 40, 50 years! Maybe the current global shortage of raw materials for electronic components could drive a rethink? Although wouldn't help with the original post where a company just decides to exit a market and doesn't care if it's customer's can find an alternative to their now dead lumps of silicon.

I don't own a BMW Mike as they don't seem to come with indicators...  Ahh but maybe they're another 'over the network' add on that some people haven't subscribed to...! 

Oh gawd...don't tempt them... 

Re BMW, the jokes are already out there https://newsbiscuit.proboards.com/thread/10552/offers-careful-considerate-subscription-ability

BMW offers “careful, considerate driver” subscription and ability to move from the middle lane

mapj1 said:

appears that BMW drivers can rent the option of over the network activated heated seats.

I'm just trying to think through the ethics of this (having read through the article properly now). So BMW have built a car with all these features, but they are withholding them unless you give them more money. As opposed to the original "optional extras" principle which was that it would cost the manufacturer more to add the extra features, so you needed to pay them to do so (or could choose to go without). Actually this has been around for years in electronics - it's much cheaper to make one design of chip in volume but then sell differently priced variants, disabling the unpaid for functions. (And for those of us who are old enough, calling transistors in opaque cans OC71s, and transistors in clear cans OCP71 phototransistors for a much higher price!)  The argument I guess being that the average price paid covers the manufacturing costs, but some people are paying less and getting less and some are paying more and getting more so everyone's getting a fair deal. 

But it still niggles me - if I've engineered in a feature I'd like my customers to be able to use it! Even though I can see the counter argument of being able to still sell your product to people who can't (or don't want to) pay the higher price, no-one is exactly "losing".

Hmm...answers on a postcard please...and at least so far BMW haven't decided to get out of the car business and hence turned off (by default) everyone's optional extras... 

Ah yes - but those of us in the know just scraped the black paint off the OC71's

Absolutely! Except they sometimes foiled us by filling them full of blue gloop...

Absolutely! Except they sometimes foiled us by filling them full of blue gloop...