unplanned-for obsolescence (sic)

[cellio]

You probably have several devices or software applications that periodically phone home. OS upgrades, anti-virus updates, your cell phone if you go off the network (I assume this is why my battery is sucked dry in a few hours in Toronto), any modern version of Windows for validation, and so on. We live in a wired world and we make things that take advantage of that.

I wonder how often the producers of such things take into account that such support will someday end -- there will be no more updates to this OS, for instance, so why bother continuing to check? This thought was brought to mind by my series-1 TiVo, which occasionally hangs and requires a hard reboot via the power cord. Today after reboot I was greeted by the message that the device would be unable to serve my needs until it phoned home, which it wants to do once a day and which it assures me it needs to do for software updates and the program guide. So I had to let it.

There have been no updates to the software for years and the program guide would not be helpful to this box in these modern DTV days. (The box doesn't contain a digital tuner.) There is nothing they could possibly be sending to my TiVo via the internet that could make my box perform any better than it does today. And yet, because a periodic check was programmed in without apparent consideration for expiration conditions or even support for a "stop calling" message from the server, my box needs to go through the motions.

(Yes, all it can do is record manually from channel 3, and I have to control what channel 3 points to externally. For as little current TV as I watch this is just fine and it's not worth spending the money on a new TiVo with new contract.)

Hmm. I just realized that this means that if TiVo should ever decide to, they could disable older boxes remotely -- even ones for which a lifetime contract was purchased (like mine) -- just by not answering that phone call. In other words, TiVo was in the "you're really just renting content" business years before some of the other players. They might not have intended to be in that business, but by programming their devices to require a useless service call, they have built in a weakness that they could later decide to exploit. I wonder what it would take to hack around this.

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

>> I wonder how often the producers of such things take into account that such support will someday end

Based on what my husband the sysadmin says, I think they take it into account much more frequently than the users do. One of his work tasks is reminding people/divisions/offices exactly how long they have before their software/hardware is no longer supported -- and then a) installing the new stuff when the support is no longer available or b) finding ways to deal with it when a subset of said people/divisions/offices refuse to use the new stuff. Most of those involved go with option a), which means regular purchases of new versions of (almost) the same old stuff.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This was a very sensible thing to notice, and some really good questions.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the hardware itself die as well? How long can a TiVo hard drive last?

[cellio]

Eventually, like any appliance does, but it spends most of its time in sleep mode so it gets way less use than a typical home computer. When that day comes I'll decide how much I'm willing to spend on the then-available options. I've still got a couple of VCRs that can be deployed in a pinch if I don't want to make a decision between failure time and the next episode of Big Bang Theory (or whatever).

[sethg]

I used to run ropine.com mail service out of a 486 machine that vettecat’s mother was throwing out. It was something like ten years old when I acquired it and I only threw it away when it couldn’t keep up with the incoming spam. I don’t remember whether or not I replaced the hard drive, but in any case, hard drives are fairly easy to replace (the interface is standardized and the right kind of geek can bulk-copy the data) and under a normal consumer workload they seem to last for quite a few years.

(There have only been two instances where hard drives have failed catastrophically in my house, and in both of those cases I think the cause was environmental rather than age: once because of flying metal dust when our old furnace was taken out, and once because I tried to run a full backup over a few days when the temperature in the room was over 90°F.)

[cellio]

That reminds me that the drive in this one has already been replaced once (not by me). I believe it was an upgrade, not the result of a failure. But yeah, hard drives are doable; if the box itself fails that's another matter (beyond my skill to fix).

[alienor.livejournal.com]

When I was running a lab last year one of my minor headaches was several pieces of gear that were designed to call home regularly for updates, but our security practices wouldn't allow it. You'd think they'd build in alternate update methods.

[sethg]

I’m too lazy to look up the brand name, but Microsoft used to sell a certain kind of digital music player whose DRM system required it to phone home, and then they terminated the line, and after some period (maybe a year?), the people who had bought those players and music to play on them were SOL.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

(yeah, I'm really late to this party)

I figure the lifetime subscription was worth it. The payoff was two years and I've had it for at least four. The idea that they can do whatever they want to disable your box is scary but it was a risk that worked out for me. (my series 2 can't talk to my cable box so I'm ditching cable really soon (if I get my act together), making the TiVo useless)

I also did a lifetime subscription to 2600 back in.. wow, about 12 years ago? It had a payoff of four years, but the magazines keep rolling in. I am very un-upset.

My personal opinion is that streaming will take over in the next few years. There are just too many options out there. That still leaves you at the behest of your OS or source but competition will win out.