this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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I'll start: printers.

I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn't sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.

Luckily my library's close by and I can print there remotely.

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[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

Cars.

Most any vehicle made after 2006 will have one or more of these three issues:

  1. Lack of repairability. Not just computerization, but auth to the point where changing your brake pads and rotors can make your vehicle refuse to move until those brakes and rotors are authorized over the Internet by the vehicle manufacturer. And the software to do so costs $1M to buy, needs a $6k/mo subscription, and can only be bought by authorized dealers, locking out independent repair shops.
  2. Privacy. Almost all vehicles after 2006 and any before that with OnStar records everything the vehicle does and sends that up to the mothership to be repackaged and sold to data brokers. Then your insurance gets a copy and jacks up what you pay because you braked hard and sped slightly over the limit a few times. Modern cars will also record everything that happens inside and around the vehicle, to the point where when you buy the car you have to sign a waiver that states they have permission to record anyone doing anything inside the vehicle, up to and including having sex in the back seat.
  3. DRM/subscriptions. When you buy a vehicle with all the bells and whistles, but many of those bells and whistles are shut down until you pay $$$/mo to have them turned back on. Sorry, but if the vehicle came with it, I will gleefully crack that software until I can use that feature. I paid for it when I bought the vehicle, so I have every right to use it without paying a cent extra.
[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ive got a 2017 car and a 2018 car, one of them is even electric and basically none of what you say is true until ~2020 model year. That's about the time th subscription model came out for extras on some european cars.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

basically none of what you say is true until ~2020 model year.

Ahem. You were saying?

OnStar had cellular modems in vehicles for the last 30 years. They were not “real time” like post-2006, when 3G connectivity started to be installed, but they did dial up the mothership to upload usage data and accept instructions like whole-vehicle immobilizations in the case of theft.

Ignorance is not a good look for you.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Pretty much nothing that you just said is true. What car can’t you change the brake pads on without going to that brands official repair shop?

As for the data one, how exactly is all this data being transmitted?

The “DRM” one is true to a small extent though, and that’s crap when they do that.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Pretty much nothing that you just said is true. What car can’t you change the brake pads on without going to that brands official repair shop?

Hyundai. In terms of the major/historical brands, it has started with Hyundai, and other brands are also getting in on the act.

Plus, Tesla has been doing it for years, now. A Tesla will go into “limp home mode” with almost any kind of unauthorized repair you do to it.

As for the data one, how exactly is all this data being transmitted?

Since OnStar was first released, in the late 80s, it has gone over cellular modems. It’s how anyone with OnStar in their vehicle could have it remotely disabled from the very first OnStar vehicle onward. And pretty much every vehicle manufactured after 2006 has a cell phone SIM or eSIM installed so as to provide real-time data stream to the mothership, and by 2014 this even included consumer access to the Internet via 4G LTE services.

Ignorance is how you’ve gotten egg on your face. You might want to do some fundamental research next time.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 points 23 minutes ago

Hyundai does not do that lol.

OnStar isn’t in every car.

You can repair basically nothing on a Tesla because it’s got basically nothing you can physically repair.

Pretty much no cars come with a sim or eSIM that is constantly sending data back.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

They exagurate, but I expect all these features come to pass eventually. Between the EUs driver monitoring mandate and BMWs subscription to use your heated seat coils. Its only a matter of time before the new bug is actually a bug.

2006 is the era when cars became complicated enough you needed more than basic wiring to repair them, for a car guy, that around where Ive seen them talk of the latest they would buy.

I would also say 2017 is also around a good time for non-car people who are good with tech. This is around the time when the cars computer would manage the radio, inputs and a backup camera. If you wanted GPS on the screen, your phone would have to handle it, the car would have no sim card.

Anything made after the plague, they are not far off for the level of tech and privacy concerns, just not all of these fratures are in a vehicle fresh from the dealers lot yet.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

They exagurate,

Sorry, everything I have mentioned is happening right now. It is no longer any kind of an exaggeration.

Repairability is under direct attack from Hyundai as one of the first traditional automakers, and Tesla has been fighting repairability for a lot longer. You try and poke at most any Tesla part, and it drops into “limp home mode” until a dealership clears the problem.

DRM/Subscriptions are found from many manufacturers now, from Honda and BMW and many others.

About the only “old news” is the privacy one, with the Feds spying on always-connected cars since 2010. And connectivity has been there decades earlier via OnStar, albeit not in the form we now call “real time”.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Later model cars with internet connections or telematics antennas are likely sending info about whatever they can, whenever they can, but such things can be disabled easily enough.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which manufacturers offer free Internet connections in their cars?

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its free for them when its sending your info to them.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which manufacturers do this and in which models?

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world -1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Collecting data is one thing. Wirelessly transmitting it to the manufacturer is another.

Which manufacturers have built in 3/4/5G connections for free that transmit data back to them?

This data is all kept on the vehicle unless you then use an app on your phone to send it back to them or a third party, or your car is in an accident and they get the data to investigate.

So again - which manufacturers and which models have built in wireless connections that transmit data back?

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Bug off, sealion. You aren't going to accept that telematics antennas exist, therefore you have no idea what you're talking about and can be ignored.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Still haven’t named a single manufacturer or model. Strange.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Wow, you really are a bleedingly ignorant asshole.

The Feds have spied on connected cars for the last 15 years.

As in, real-time uploads being spied upon. Since 2010. Because that is when the tech became truly wide-spread

And cars have been recording and sending data for a long time before that via OnStar, just not in what we view as “real time”.

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 points 26 minutes ago

Those are all ones that have some “onstar” service, or just basic location tracking via ones that have a satellite radio. That’s a far cry from every car made after 2006 lol.