It's probably way less true than it once was, because we used to build things with meaningful safety factors, and because all of these devices have flash storage in them now and it's subject to bitrot.

Bad for their customers, yes. Good for Sony, as long as they don't get busted for claiming to sell what they clearly were only renting out, and they clearly knew this if they didn't secure a perpetual license.

Anyone "buying" a digital good which doesn't come with the inherent ability to use it later (like a GOG download) isn't buying it. While it should be illegal to claim you're selling to those people instead of just renting, they are also being fools if they think they own that.

Who are you? Nobody? Oh, OK. Feel free.

They could instead be prohibited from operating in markets where that data would give them an unfair advantage.

Both corporations and intellectual property are legal fictions, they are not real property. They are supposed to exist only for the benefit of The People. Work it out.

It's not just capitalism at play. There's also nationalism.

China may invade Taiwan eventually. TSMC would be irresponsible not to hedge against that.

Sure, as long as we can all also admit that Clinton was a rapey piece of shit who did multiple absolutely fucking terrible things, like signing the CDA and PRWORA. Also, "got a blow job" is a gross misrepresentation. "Coerced an intern into a sexual act" is a better one.

Which is exactly why no one should ever trust a promise from the USA again. Until we get our legal documents into some semblance of order, it must be assumed that this will all happen repeatedly.

Yes, and it's wrong. And it's also exactly why congresscreeps shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. It goes way beyond insider trading, straight to market manipulation.

He's creating a "middle class" - they will get the info after the regular insiders, but before hoi polloi.

He should have thought of selling multiple levels of higher tiers.

For a small fee you can get your bullshit before everyone else.

In OSS there's a certain desperation for quality code where a lot of bullshit has historically been tolerated.

In the comment you posted at the top of this thread, you talked about servers, desktops, and mobile devices. Now you want the conversation to be only about desktops.

Extreme? Not in my opinion.

Swappable batteries seem to make sense for city cars, otherwise they don't really work out. It would perhaps work better if we built space frame vehicles, but unibody is actually superior for overall user experience, especially in NVH.

On one hand, you raise good points, and on the other hand they don't apply to automotive traction batteries. Battery packs are chassis structural members.