I think your car metaphor is even more apt than you meant it, as over time both car manufacturers and mobile platforms have gotten more and more hostile to users actually being able to do maintenance or self service.
That’s true, but there’s always a way. For instance clones of the John Deere factory service tool and pirated software is available on AliExpress for less than a thousand dollars. For more common manufacturers there’s tools for doing all kinds of stuff.
The more popular the platform, the more prevalent the problem, and the more expensive the OEM makes it are all determining factors as to the availability of aftermarket tools and repairs.
If something costs a million people one thousand dollars to fix then a third party can afford a couple of full time engineers to come up with a fix that costs five hundred.
I’ve personally made my own physical tools for working on cars when a factory special tool is called for.
Never underestimate a determined person with a welder and a grinder.
For sure, but it does make the barrier to entry significantly higher. A kid now is much less likely to stumble into how something works if they have to effectively break several locks when before the door was wide open.
Hackers gonna hack, and that’s a great thing tbh, but more impressive the talk about how someone did X is the less likly someone would have just got it working like that.
Again, I’m 100% for the spirit of it, but wish more stuff was “hobbyist/diy” friendly. Those terms though even shows how far we have gotten away from the concept of self repair and modification that it’s an exception to be able to work on your own stuff, and you have to spend significant amount of time reverse engineering to fix even a basic thing.
We need more Richard Stallmans, and Lousie Rossmans out here being outraged by the constant work to undermine people from fixing and using the things they own.
I think your car metaphor is even more apt than you meant it, as over time both car manufacturers and mobile platforms have gotten more and more hostile to users actually being able to do maintenance or self service.
That’s true, but there’s always a way. For instance clones of the John Deere factory service tool and pirated software is available on AliExpress for less than a thousand dollars. For more common manufacturers there’s tools for doing all kinds of stuff.
The more popular the platform, the more prevalent the problem, and the more expensive the OEM makes it are all determining factors as to the availability of aftermarket tools and repairs.
If something costs a million people one thousand dollars to fix then a third party can afford a couple of full time engineers to come up with a fix that costs five hundred.
I’ve personally made my own physical tools for working on cars when a factory special tool is called for.
Never underestimate a determined person with a welder and a grinder.
For sure, but it does make the barrier to entry significantly higher. A kid now is much less likely to stumble into how something works if they have to effectively break several locks when before the door was wide open.
Hackers gonna hack, and that’s a great thing tbh, but more impressive the talk about how someone did X is the less likly someone would have just got it working like that.
Again, I’m 100% for the spirit of it, but wish more stuff was “hobbyist/diy” friendly. Those terms though even shows how far we have gotten away from the concept of self repair and modification that it’s an exception to be able to work on your own stuff, and you have to spend significant amount of time reverse engineering to fix even a basic thing.
We need more Richard Stallmans, and Lousie Rossmans out here being outraged by the constant work to undermine people from fixing and using the things they own.