Indeed. A laissez faire market doesnât long remain a free a market. Antitrust laws should cover this. Itâs basically product tying. Theyâre using their position in the dishwasher market to force consumers to buy inferior products we donât want: the lousy interface that comes with their dishwasher.
If theyâre going to suck so badly at making an interface (canât even afford buttons on a $1000 dishwasher? Canât even afford a segmented display?) then maybe they should at least be required to provide some interoperable ports, API, and the documentations for competitors (FOSS hackers) to easily fill the market niche that the dishwasher company has only jammed up with their own faeces. Probably also require them to provide consumers with a reference to a catalogue where such competitors post their listings. Itâs not requiring them to do any more work - just the work they already shouldâve done within their own company at least. If they donât want to finish the job adequately, they can feel free to leave it to others to do it for them, but done right.
Bought a brand new car recently, and I must say⊠I wouldâve been more impressed if theyâd just given me a 20 year old model fresh off the assembly line. No tactile buttons for the thermostat or radio presets, just a cheap touchscreen and a stupid voice command feature. (If I ever want to talk to my machine for some reason, the offline assistant you shared is the only thing Iâve seen that Iâd ever consider.) I turned off all its data network tracking, which is also a case of product tying. If I want data in my vehicle, Iâll shop for it on the free market rather than letting them price-tie me into their closed market crap. Same goes for dash cams. Fortunately though, owners do seem toâve found ways of hacking in to that model, so I might be able to configure it with some proper buttons at some point.
(Oh, but donât get me started on the credit company that the dealership illegally forced me to go through instead of accepting a loan from the free market, and all the ways theyâve tried to scam me, locking me out of my accounts in every way they can think of to try to force me to make a late payment so they can raise my price. A laissez faire market is not a free market.)