> His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it.
I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.
Having the right to hack your own physical devices is one thing. Getting unlimited access to the cell network just because Amazon sold you a device with credentials for it is totally different and the kind of thing that makes people not take you seriously.
It is a different thing. However they sold you a device with access to the Internet as a feature (not just a SIM slot to put your own). Why would they get to choose what you can do with it?
It's a bit like when Facebook wanted to bring "Internet" into countries where bandwidth is expensive, by branding unlimited access to Facebook as "Internet". Having access to the network should give you full access to the network (net neutrality). Having acquired hardware should give you full access to put your own system (right to repair).
It's only logical that if you paid for a device, and some money of that went into providing you free Internet services, you get to do what you want with both the device and the Internet access and Amazon should have no control over what you do because they CHOSE to sell that to you in an attempt to exploit your attention and control what you can read. That relation was abusive to start with, and that some people find little benefits in it does not bother me from an ethical perspective.
Thanks, definitely not buying one of those. I'm happy to have books that don't require a battery, can't be used to track my habits, and can be lent or given away as i please. If i wanted an ebook reader, i'd go for something 'stupid' (as opposed to smart) that does not provide higher powers the ability to remotely delete my books:
Lol so if you don't have a Kindle, don't want a Kindle, and don't intend to get a Kindle... then why are you here talking about Kindles? What's your skin in the game?
Lol so if you don't do murder, don't want murder, and don't want to do murder... then why are you here talking about murder? What's your skin in the game?
Do you see the absurdity of your argument? It makes perfect sense to criticize something you find profoundly unethical even when you're not directly concerned by the situation.
I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument
Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it."
Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then."
(Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.)
However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.
It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine.
They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
It is also a little more subtle than you are describing.
People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition.
How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume?
If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
No, it's not exactly like that. It's like selling a bottle of wine (marketed as such), that will purposefully self-destruct if you try to open it in a setting that the manufacturer does not approve of, say an orgy or a popular ball (as opposed to a bourgeois banquet). Technically, it's wine that's intended to be drunk. But the manufacturer enforces that you use it however they please, not you.
So you paid money for the product. The product is technically capable to fulfill your greatest needs and desire as someone who purchased it, yet it has built-in mechanisms to enforce the will of someone else on your life.
Would you find it normal to have screws sold with Ikea furniture that are made so that they can only screw Ikea furniture? Or gasoline sold with a BMW car that only works in BMW cars? Or bread sold with a butter that can only go on that kind of bread? It makes no sense, as interoperability is a fundamental property of most things around us, going against that is an insult and an injury to all of humanity, and to our planet that's ever more polluted because our overlords have decided we should keep on producing and throwing away hardware instead of repairing/re-purposing things as we used to not long ago.
I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.