Quote:
Originally Posted by RNorb
BMW can and should charge as much as the market will bear for their products and services. That's the way it works in a free market capitalist economy. There is plenty of competition and the consumer votes with their dollars determining which companies survive or fail. That system has given us the incredible technological advances and quality of life we have enjoyed for the past 100 years in this country.
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I don't actually disagree with this in concept. I think if the US Congress passed solid "right to tinker/repair" legislation, companies were required to provide source code for any software they no longer supported, and companies were required to provide enough technical information for any devices sold that compatible software could be loaded onto them by anyone (who was technically capable enough), then I'd be on-board with "charge whatever price you can get for your services". As long as I can legally modify the software, and the company provides the docs to make this feasible, I think that's totally fine.
I object to companies modifying products I purchase, in ways I cannot control, to extort more money after the fact, and/or because they don't allow people to modify the products they have purchased. If the government fixed that, then my issues with BMW's behavior in this context largely evaporate.