So... they wrote American but they are confusing anti-consumer tactics with an entire country, even though they were not going for that.
Just want to point out:
* Samsung has been accused of releasing software updates that degrade performance, forcing you to buy newer devices - Samsung is not American
* Brother - Japanese printer maker, I LOVE their printers mind you, but they've released firmware upgrades that prevent or degrade compatibility with third party ink cartridges
* Epson - Also Japanese, also have owned some of their printers, same thing with third party ink cartridges.
I'm sure there's many more companies, not from the US who do equally if not worse evils with software / hardware.
What the author is after isn't American products, just anti-consumerism, which can be impossible to predict mind you. Anyone of any country can do it.
When I reached the part about watching a lot of Louis Rossmann videos it made more sense. I have to be careful with my words because there are a lot of Louis Rossmann fans on HN. Rossmann is a very charismatic influencer who speaks with a confident and soothing tone and positions himself as someone just telling the facts for the benefits of his viewers. I've written before about how he tends to jump to conclusions, launch videos based on rumors, ignore facts that contradict juicy controversies, and stir the pot while positioning himself as the only rational source for a subject.
Note that I'm not saying Louis Rossmann is always wrong, nor that I disagree with him on everything, nor that I dislike the good things he does, nor any of the other numerous straw-man arguments that people come up with when you bring up issues with his influencer activity. However, he's the type of influencer who seems to lure in people who let their guard down and stop thinking critically for themselves, which opens the door to articles like this one where the conclusion isn't entirely rational but it feels rational after watching Louis Rossmann talk about it for hours and hours.
Conflating America, the country, with American companies, ignoring all of the non-American companies doing the same practices, and then bringing up a non-American company as the lone supporting example is all consistent with the dynamic I'm describing. The conclusion is assumed to be correct, because it's correct in the world of Louis Rossmann, but putting it to words outside of the YouTube influencer bubble falls apart on any critical thinking.
They said nothing of the sort. You seem to have a penchant for jumping to conclusions. Likewise with conflating a country with a bunch of companies. Cool down, your outrage seems to cloud your thinking.
> he's the type of influencer who seems to lure in people who let their guard down and stop thinking critically for themselves
Have I been lured into it and let my guard down? I don't think so, since I am quite capable of critical thinking. It's thus condescending.
> bringing up a non-American company as the lone supporting example
I've done no such thing, there are countless examples in the post.
I really fail to see how that's jumping to conclusions. I'd give you that I am a bit worked up because I am very exposed, so maybe I could have phrased my answer better.
> If you think it's ok for a company to sell you a product and after purchase hide some functionalities behind a subscription, you not only a victim anymore, but a part of the problem.
That is not at all a valid reduction of the complaints you are responding to. It's not even close.
Yes. Is that hypocrisy? No, because I'm not advocating for any extreme form of consuming veganism. I'm advocating for a message.
If the message is strong and clear that companies can't employ anti-consumer practices without consequences, then maybe other companies like Reason that operates outside the US will think twice before doing it, even if the laws under which they operate would allow them to.
Why target American products then? It's not accidental. US is by far the largest market and as such has the responsibility to set an example. If we change the example being set that will likely ripple to other markets.
My arguments are in my post. I've described exactly the type of behavior from the american market that enables this happening there and sets an example for the rest of the world. It's not punish group B for something done by group A, is punishing group B for leading group A with a terrible example. What's illogical and immoral is to antagonize the very people that consumes your product.
You can go about tackling consumerism in many ways. I believe the way that makes the most sense is to start with the largest market. Make it better there, it'll set an example for the rest of the world. Because Americans pride themselves in being the leaders of the free world. Well, that leadership comes with responsibilities, and while yes anti-consumer practices aren't exclusive to US companies, by not being able to care less about their consumers the US is setting a terrible precedent, which we need to address as consumers.
No, it's not about the companies, it's about the government that allows those companies to behave the way they do. Which is why the article is about the US and not about Walmart or Dow Chemical.
Companies will almost always look for ways to extract maximum profit even if it comes at the expense of others' wellbeing. So it is up to government to protect its citizens by regulations that prevent, for example, polluting water supplies, the air we breathe, etc., or from taking advantage of consumers, defrauding them, etc.
If government decides to roll back many of those regulations (like gutting the CFPB), then companies are free to engage in those destructive practices.
You can blame the companies, sure -- but mostly I blame the government (and those who voted for that government) because it's their job to keep companies in check, and instead of doing that, they're in bed with the companies, and even directly profiting from them (also known as corruption, which oligarchies do very well).
This is me ranting and venting after watching too much Louis Rossmann on Youtube, but I think there is some merit in the points I made in the post, hopefully it'll resonate with some of you. I expect this post to be aggravating to some, just because it heavily criticizes liberal democracies with unreasonably week market regulations.
No, it's aggravating because it uses almost no evidence to blame group A for something groups B, C, and D through Z are guilty of. In fact, the primary evidence presented weirdly isn't from Group A at all.
It's a nonsensical rant, dressed up in proper English format and syntax.
Care to dismantle my arguments then? How is the US not an oligarchy, how an oligarchy doesn't devolve into the situation described, how US is not anti-consumer, how the ethos there wouldn't protect companies from being anti-consumers, how the Tesla, Google and Microsoft examples don't apply.
If you are going to disagree with other people you should prepare your response better, otherwise you are just claiming stuff in English without any substance.
Rossmann is doing some good work bringing awareness to this issue. A lot of people on this forum dabble in a lot of different spheres and I suspect most have been affected by what he describes on a semi-regular basis.
He is doing some good but he becomes a hypocrite when first arguing for legal frameworks to enforce fair dealing in product access and repairability then turns around and espouses depriving content creators of their income.
I assume this is about adblock. In that case, the PC owner/user's right to control their own hardware takes priority over the content creator's desire to control other people's hardware. Without that fundamental rule, it becomes possible for i.e. John Deere to dictate how you can repair or modify your own equipment, if they allow you to do it at all.
It's unpleasant and I really feel for the content creators whose livelihoods are impacted but we've already seen how bad it is to restrict end users' autonomy.
What piracy tools? I asked gemini (because no way am I sifting through his million hours of video), and all it could come up with is that he talks about a certain DVD player that, I guess, has faulty firmware that bypasses region restrictions. And he has a "garage full of them" (per gemini)
It is strange that so many Brazilians choose to buy products in less regulated and protectionist Paraguay, why would so many Brazilian Drs choose to be educated in a "right-wing narco state". Why is there less inequality in unregulated Paraguay?
What advantage is conveyed to people who travel from Floripa to CDE just to avoid the wonderful consumer protections offered in Brazil? Why would they do such a thing when given the opportunity to vote with their feet?
How does paying twice as much for a car advantage the average Brazilian? Does it make it more affordable for them? Why do "poor" Paraguayans drive Mercedes and BMW when Brazilians choose Renault for the same price?
Idk and I don't care. One mistake doesn't make another right. You can spend all your free time bashing on Brazilian policies and you'd be mostly right. Consumption is taxed as well as income, the rich pays laughably low taxes and corruption is still rampant with all the congressman taking a bite of public treasury. Still the point stands, Brazil has shown that his laws and regulations work better than US, not only when applying due process to judge and hold polítical figures accountable, but also to protect the consumer after purchase.
This is why I hate tariffs and extreme regulations so much. My Xiaomi vacuum cleaner is the best I've ever owned, but I can't purchase their electric car, and even if I could - it'd cost an extra 40% or so just on the tariffs.
We need a free market with open competition. The best guarantor of rights is having the option to walk away and choose a different provider - in employment, and in services / retail purchases, etc.
"Free market with open competition" works when countries play fair. China doesn't play fair. What you propose is to decimate the car industry (your example) and be dependent on foreign actors. Extrapolate that to every industry, and now you have a shell of a country. Late-stage capitalism is equally bad as a "free-for-all" market.
There are multiple agencies that were created initially to protect consumers. The FTC, CFPB, USDA, FDA, EPA, (arguably the FCC fits here to, but it's a stretch). The issue with each of these agencies is their power has been eroded and redirected over the years. That's because their regulations when done correctly directly and negatively impact monied interests.
Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.
And now they're all effectively dead, killed by illegal executive actions whose lawsuits have stalled out in the Supreme Court queue. But the employees are already fired and looking for new jobs, so even if the actions are rolled back when SCOTUS finally gets around to it (strategic delay -- they can move like lightning when it suits them), they'll be hollowed out and unable to perform their legislatively mandated duties.
> Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.
I'm sorry but democrats have not and are not trying to clean up messes left by republican administrations. Further, it was the democrats under Clinton that have done the most damage to government function "The era of big government is over". They ushered in the privatization and corporate capture of government. A lot of the Dems are still in congress from the clinton era.
Lina Khan is a really good example of the problem with democrats. She was one of Biden's most popular appointees. I saw her praised from across the political spectrum because she, with the little power she had, was actually doing what a lot of people wanted.
And she is exactly the person that dem donors wanted out [1]. Kamala was week there. Rather than embracing the actions of Khan, she was silent as was biden. It was a real question if she'd keep her on board because the donors were so against her.
That's the problem Democrats have. Republicans would never hire a Khan in the first place. If the donors squeal loud enough, despite how popular a cabinet pick is for the general public, dems will capitulate. Weakening trust that they are actually trying to fix anything.
I could go on. The boarder is another prime example of democrats utterly failing. Rather than make the case for the humanity of immigrants, they adopted the republican narrative and policies. Biden for nearly his entire admin had identical boarder policies to trump. Almost nobody in the Democrat representees is talking about scaling back ICE (certainly not the leadership). I do not think if they get power, they'd even contemplate reducing the new insane ICE budget.
> If someone were to revive such a movement or if some politicians were to attach themselves to it then I think it would be hugely popular.
Senator Elizabeth Warren's whole schtick was, and still is, pro-consumer. She practically built the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with her own two hands. Sadly the CFPB has now been hamstrung by DOGE and the Trump admin; it's been stripped of much of its capacity to enforce its rules, conduct investigations and protect consumers.
Approval rate doesn't seem to be much of a concern for modern western politicians. The current administrations in the US and some other western countries have abysmally low approval ratings and they're still in power. (This is not a value judgment of the administrations or people who voted for them, just an observation).
consumerism is for the benefit of the corporations, not the consumer. it's to get people to consume more. being pro-consumer leads to things like warranty, forcing me to make my products last longer which leads to people buying less.
I think Steinbeck’s quip about temporarily embarrassed millionaires has a parallel in how Americans perceive their consumerism: Americans don’t see themselves as a consumer culture, even though we are one.
Biden was one of the most consumer friendly presidents in a while. He did away with a lot of nonsense fees, forced airlines to be more transparent, among other things.
Hold here. They aren't. Immediately letting 'the people' off the hook for blame is a somewhat modern fallacy. These people democratically choose the leader. You can't just 'not blame' them, as a group, for an eventual failure if they consistently choose poorly.
Yes, but the author doesn't explain why they don't blame citizens. It's reasonable to make the argument that citizens have very little power to fix certain problems. E.g. I haven't had the option of a candidate willing to fix (actually fix) this problem, at any level of government, in my lifetime.
I'd start my response to your comment with Cambridge Analytica and go from there to all the ways that the people can be manipulated into a fabricated consensus by the powers that be.
Voters can hold elected officials accountable by not re-electing politicians, not donating to them, and supporting candidates that will better represent them.
The problem is that most citizens are not civically knowledgeable or engaged which is why we continue to have to choose the lesser of two evils that are often the same in policy.
The choice is between Anti Consumer Jerk #1 and Slightly Less Of An Anti Consumer Jerk #2. One of them is going to be in charge. There is no choice to simply not elect someone, and writing in a non-jerk is unrealistic.
A civically informed and engaged population also has a choice to organize against the political establishment, run their own candidates, or create political action committees. The PAC can endorse and otherwise work to support a better candidate to win a primary (See David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC), or if you don't mind getting a little dirty, the PAC can raise enough money to buy the politicians and bend them to their will.
I do admit that this is more difficult for Presidential elections, but certainly this can be effective at the state and local level and arguably could be used effectively within Congress if done right. In fact, we might be seeing some of that begin to happen in states like Maine given the response Graham Platner has already received. Kat Abughazaleh is another example. She's a progressive who is taking a somewhat novel approach to her campaign in Chicago. And of course you have Zohran Mamdani in NYC mayoral race.
Two thirds of American voters took the worst of the options though - either voted for Trump, or didn’t vote at all. It’s a majority problem, and I would totally excuse even third party voters here. But a large chunk of Americans couldn’t even be assed to do the bare minimum!
Does this mean not buying from American companies, or things that were made in America? E.g. would this person consider buying a MacBook from Apple that's entirely manufactured in China to be "buying American"?
The author seems to think american companies are anti-consumer. That would certainly include Apple, no matter where a given product is made. Iphones are locked down due to decisions made by Apple execs and employees living and woking in the US, regardless where they are fabricated. It's the lockdown that matters, not where the factory is located.
I don't see why you would even think the geographical location of the manufacturing plant matters.
Stuff that global companies sell in the US are mostly anti-consumer, even if they are foreign. Its because the USians hate government and don't want to prevent companies from abusing their customer base because it would hurt the companies bottom line.
As big companies are mostly held by globalists (very rich libertarians who think, mostly rightfully, that laws don't apply to them and who want to make more money or accrue more power), they take advantage of the non-existant regulations. The issue is that now even medium corps are held by the same type of people in the US, so i think the author might have a good point: avoid buying from large corps in the US, prefer small, at worst medium, or better: small and foreign.
Is there a reason you think that might not count? Obviously the point of not buying X is to avoid supporting X for long-term moral and practical reasons, despite the product's convenience/cheapness/quality/whatever.
It was a genuine question, since I imagine it would be difficult to be a tech enthusiast while having your entire personal supply chain be free of any US-based company. Regardless, kudos to people who try.
It does not have to be all or nothing. You can probably aim to reduce the degree of "US-made-ness" of your tech gadgets. I don't know how effective that is, but it's an option that's available.
the question is who makes the profit. for apple products most of the profit goes to the US. for others, eg. lenovo most of the profits go to hong kong/china.
maybe you can avoid US components with ARM based computers, or loongson, the chinese CPU.
No shade to the poster but we don't really make much, so not buying American is very easy. Besides tomatoes and apples most people in the US probably don't even own anything made here.
Would you call iPhones chinese and not american? No matter, I think obviously people would consider them american, and importantly, the way they function and respect or trample consumer rights is decided by american citizens.
Maybe the US doesn't make much per se, but it certainly decides and influences much.
US produces a lot of digital goods. A lot of high quality digital goods to be precise, which makes this a tragedy. I want so much to just buy Apple products and have the best setup for music production, but I just can't because of what I laid out in the post.
A ton of people own iPhones, drive Fords and Chevrolets, and buy a lot of local produce. Anybody lucky enough to own a house also own a locally-produced one.
The most fascinating thing in this self-aware rant is that Reason is still around. I haven’t heard of their DAW in what must be 20 years.
n.b. They were shamelessly anticonsumer all along even in the early days. That’s why we just moved on from them and, to me anyway, they fell into obscurity.
I do, and it doesn't hurt the point in the article because the rant isn't directed at all the companies that are anti-consumer. It's directed at the bad example the US market sets for the entire world. It's the leading market, the richest country in the world.
In other words, if US companies didn't misbehave and US were still the largest market in the world, would other companies like Reason be bold enough to screw consumers?
Let's not be cynical here. What happens in the US ripples across the entire free world just because it's in a position of economical and political leadership that it carved for itself by means of force and influence since the great world wars.
You know about America, you can see our big court cases live.[1] You have no idea what happens in Brazilian courts, your own country. (If your courts were open, there'd be a RECAP equivalent.) Same for European countries.
A law says "all evil is unlawful" and the naive think it's a utopia. A ignorância é uma bênção.
I came to the same conclusion years ago. The best appliances and kitchenware I've ever bought were designed (not necessarily made) in countries which have strongly defended return policies. Thinking La Creuset, Breville, Bosch, etc.
In general you get quality from the EU and the UK/Aus/Can/NZ countries where there's "you may return the product at any time for a full refund if it has a fault" type of laws and a consumer agency to help police enforcement (the law is worthless if the consumer has to take a store to court themselves). I'll also give a viewpoint that Japan and SK, like the USA, have fallen pretty far and i don't include them in the above group. If you look it up it appears stores can easily refuse refunds which is a recipe for crap products which explains the absolutely shit Sony and Samsung have been putting out the past decade.
This seems like an empty threat. Okay, so what non-American products do they plan to buy instead? What qualifies something as an American product? Is Apple American because their HQ is there? Are Samsung phones American because they use American Corning Gorilla Glass? Not to mention plenty of other countries have companies that engage in similar practices. As they say, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
I won't lie that I had HN partially in mind when I wrote the post. It honestly started as a way for me to vent, but I thought what the hell, lemme post there, it prolly won't even survive the New page without getting flagged. Didn't really think it would hit front page (but I really was expecting it to get flagged which it eventually did).
I love visiting Brazil, but it’s not like paying 3x the price for an iPhone means you’re less likely to get it stolen in Foz vs CDE (where presumably they bought the phone)
If the writer of the article is here I’m interested in why there’s far more consumer protection southern red states like Santa Catarina vs northern blue states. How come things just don’t get stolen as often there in the Bolsonaro areas?
If your answer is poverty i refer you to CDE vs Foz.
The USA isn't a traditional oligarchy. It does have different levels and kinds of power. Most of them are corporate, but some are purely political or ideological (like Trump's regime). Our oligarchy is more like a collection of oligopolies that all share an interest in the political state and economy. After Trump goes away, they will work towards preventing a single leader from working against their interests again. It's all about soft power.
In the US we have always at least acted like we try to buy American made. It feels weird that the rest of the world is only now considering where their stuff is coming from.
So... they wrote American but they are confusing anti-consumer tactics with an entire country, even though they were not going for that.
Just want to point out:
* Samsung has been accused of releasing software updates that degrade performance, forcing you to buy newer devices - Samsung is not American
* Brother - Japanese printer maker, I LOVE their printers mind you, but they've released firmware upgrades that prevent or degrade compatibility with third party ink cartridges
* Epson - Also Japanese, also have owned some of their printers, same thing with third party ink cartridges.
I'm sure there's many more companies, not from the US who do equally if not worse evils with software / hardware.
What the author is after isn't American products, just anti-consumerism, which can be impossible to predict mind you. Anyone of any country can do it.
When I reached the part about watching a lot of Louis Rossmann videos it made more sense. I have to be careful with my words because there are a lot of Louis Rossmann fans on HN. Rossmann is a very charismatic influencer who speaks with a confident and soothing tone and positions himself as someone just telling the facts for the benefits of his viewers. I've written before about how he tends to jump to conclusions, launch videos based on rumors, ignore facts that contradict juicy controversies, and stir the pot while positioning himself as the only rational source for a subject.
Note that I'm not saying Louis Rossmann is always wrong, nor that I disagree with him on everything, nor that I dislike the good things he does, nor any of the other numerous straw-man arguments that people come up with when you bring up issues with his influencer activity. However, he's the type of influencer who seems to lure in people who let their guard down and stop thinking critically for themselves, which opens the door to articles like this one where the conclusion isn't entirely rational but it feels rational after watching Louis Rossmann talk about it for hours and hours.
Conflating America, the country, with American companies, ignoring all of the non-American companies doing the same practices, and then bringing up a non-American company as the lone supporting example is all consistent with the dynamic I'm describing. The conclusion is assumed to be correct, because it's correct in the world of Louis Rossmann, but putting it to words outside of the YouTube influencer bubble falls apart on any critical thinking.
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> If you think it's ok for a company …
They said nothing of the sort. You seem to have a penchant for jumping to conclusions. Likewise with conflating a country with a bunch of companies. Cool down, your outrage seems to cloud your thinking.
> he's the type of influencer who seems to lure in people who let their guard down and stop thinking critically for themselves
Have I been lured into it and let my guard down? I don't think so, since I am quite capable of critical thinking. It's thus condescending.
> bringing up a non-American company as the lone supporting example
I've done no such thing, there are countless examples in the post.
I really fail to see how that's jumping to conclusions. I'd give you that I am a bit worked up because I am very exposed, so maybe I could have phrased my answer better.
> If you think it's ok for a company to sell you a product and after purchase hide some functionalities behind a subscription, you not only a victim anymore, but a part of the problem.
That is not at all a valid reduction of the complaints you are responding to. It's not even close.
30-yd penalty for moving the goalposts.
This isn't a game.
And his direct example, Reason, is Swedish!
That's what prompted the rest of the research, doesn't need to be American the point stands.
So you will continue to buy Swedish?
Yes. Is that hypocrisy? No, because I'm not advocating for any extreme form of consuming veganism. I'm advocating for a message.
If the message is strong and clear that companies can't employ anti-consumer practices without consequences, then maybe other companies like Reason that operates outside the US will think twice before doing it, even if the laws under which they operate would allow them to.
Why target American products then? It's not accidental. US is by far the largest market and as such has the responsibility to set an example. If we change the example being set that will likely ripple to other markets.
The single least logical statement I have ever seen on this forum.
> Is that hypocrisy? No
It's not hypocrisy, it's illogical, and even immoral. You saw something being done by group A and decided you want to punish group B for it.
My arguments are in my post. I've described exactly the type of behavior from the american market that enables this happening there and sets an example for the rest of the world. It's not punish group B for something done by group A, is punishing group B for leading group A with a terrible example. What's illogical and immoral is to antagonize the very people that consumes your product.
So the poor innocent Swedes would have acted completely honourably without the US as an example.
Utter nonsense.
sure
You can go about tackling consumerism in many ways. I believe the way that makes the most sense is to start with the largest market. Make it better there, it'll set an example for the rest of the world. Because Americans pride themselves in being the leaders of the free world. Well, that leadership comes with responsibilities, and while yes anti-consumer practices aren't exclusive to US companies, by not being able to care less about their consumers the US is setting a terrible precedent, which we need to address as consumers.
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thanks, you too
Framework, Pebble, DynaVap, ... those companies deserve to be boycotted just because the are US American?
BMW also bravely took the PR hit of going first for renting bits of the car to you (like the heated seats).
No, it's not about the companies, it's about the government that allows those companies to behave the way they do. Which is why the article is about the US and not about Walmart or Dow Chemical.
Companies will almost always look for ways to extract maximum profit even if it comes at the expense of others' wellbeing. So it is up to government to protect its citizens by regulations that prevent, for example, polluting water supplies, the air we breathe, etc., or from taking advantage of consumers, defrauding them, etc.
If government decides to roll back many of those regulations (like gutting the CFPB), then companies are free to engage in those destructive practices.
You can blame the companies, sure -- but mostly I blame the government (and those who voted for that government) because it's their job to keep companies in check, and instead of doing that, they're in bed with the companies, and even directly profiting from them (also known as corruption, which oligarchies do very well).
This is me ranting and venting after watching too much Louis Rossmann on Youtube, but I think there is some merit in the points I made in the post, hopefully it'll resonate with some of you. I expect this post to be aggravating to some, just because it heavily criticizes liberal democracies with unreasonably week market regulations.
No, it's aggravating because it uses almost no evidence to blame group A for something groups B, C, and D through Z are guilty of. In fact, the primary evidence presented weirdly isn't from Group A at all.
It's a nonsensical rant, dressed up in proper English format and syntax.
Care to dismantle my arguments then? How is the US not an oligarchy, how an oligarchy doesn't devolve into the situation described, how US is not anti-consumer, how the ethos there wouldn't protect companies from being anti-consumers, how the Tesla, Google and Microsoft examples don't apply.
If you are going to disagree with other people you should prepare your response better, otherwise you are just claiming stuff in English without any substance.
Rossmann is doing some good work bringing awareness to this issue. A lot of people on this forum dabble in a lot of different spheres and I suspect most have been affected by what he describes on a semi-regular basis.
He is doing some good but he becomes a hypocrite when first arguing for legal frameworks to enforce fair dealing in product access and repairability then turns around and espouses depriving content creators of their income.
I assume this is about adblock. In that case, the PC owner/user's right to control their own hardware takes priority over the content creator's desire to control other people's hardware. Without that fundamental rule, it becomes possible for i.e. John Deere to dictate how you can repair or modify your own equipment, if they allow you to do it at all.
It's unpleasant and I really feel for the content creators whose livelihoods are impacted but we've already seen how bad it is to restrict end users' autonomy.
Adblock is not an issue. He hawks piracy tools.
Can you elaborate? This is the first time I hear about this part.
What piracy tools? I asked gemini (because no way am I sifting through his million hours of video), and all it could come up with is that he talks about a certain DVD player that, I guess, has faulty firmware that bypasses region restrictions. And he has a "garage full of them" (per gemini)
Paradox of tolerance
It is strange that so many Brazilians choose to buy products in less regulated and protectionist Paraguay, why would so many Brazilian Drs choose to be educated in a "right-wing narco state". Why is there less inequality in unregulated Paraguay?
What advantage is conveyed to people who travel from Floripa to CDE just to avoid the wonderful consumer protections offered in Brazil? Why would they do such a thing when given the opportunity to vote with their feet?
How does paying twice as much for a car advantage the average Brazilian? Does it make it more affordable for them? Why do "poor" Paraguayans drive Mercedes and BMW when Brazilians choose Renault for the same price?
Idk and I don't care. One mistake doesn't make another right. You can spend all your free time bashing on Brazilian policies and you'd be mostly right. Consumption is taxed as well as income, the rich pays laughably low taxes and corruption is still rampant with all the congressman taking a bite of public treasury. Still the point stands, Brazil has shown that his laws and regulations work better than US, not only when applying due process to judge and hold polítical figures accountable, but also to protect the consumer after purchase.
This is why I hate tariffs and extreme regulations so much. My Xiaomi vacuum cleaner is the best I've ever owned, but I can't purchase their electric car, and even if I could - it'd cost an extra 40% or so just on the tariffs.
We need a free market with open competition. The best guarantor of rights is having the option to walk away and choose a different provider - in employment, and in services / retail purchases, etc.
Would you be willing to share a link to that vacuum cleaner? I would like to leave Dyson behind forever.
I have the Xiaomi G10 Plus with mop - https://mistore.se/products/xiaomi-vacuum-cleaner-g10-plus-e...
But I think any of the G series would be great.
"Free market with open competition" works when countries play fair. China doesn't play fair. What you propose is to decimate the car industry (your example) and be dependent on foreign actors. Extrapolate that to every industry, and now you have a shell of a country. Late-stage capitalism is equally bad as a "free-for-all" market.
It's interesting to me that a country that loves consumerism so much doesn't have a pro-consumer movement.
It looks like Ralph Nader led one for a while back in the '70s but it's long dead now.
If someone were to revive such a movement or if some politicians were to attach themselves to it then I think it would be hugely popular.
There are multiple agencies that were created initially to protect consumers. The FTC, CFPB, USDA, FDA, EPA, (arguably the FCC fits here to, but it's a stretch). The issue with each of these agencies is their power has been eroded and redirected over the years. That's because their regulations when done correctly directly and negatively impact monied interests.
Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.
And now they're all effectively dead, killed by illegal executive actions whose lawsuits have stalled out in the Supreme Court queue. But the employees are already fired and looking for new jobs, so even if the actions are rolled back when SCOTUS finally gets around to it (strategic delay -- they can move like lightning when it suits them), they'll be hollowed out and unable to perform their legislatively mandated duties.
> Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.
False equivalence benefits bad actors.
> False equivalence benefits bad actors.
It's not a false equivalence.
I'm sorry but democrats have not and are not trying to clean up messes left by republican administrations. Further, it was the democrats under Clinton that have done the most damage to government function "The era of big government is over". They ushered in the privatization and corporate capture of government. A lot of the Dems are still in congress from the clinton era.
Lina Khan is a really good example of the problem with democrats. She was one of Biden's most popular appointees. I saw her praised from across the political spectrum because she, with the little power she had, was actually doing what a lot of people wanted.
And she is exactly the person that dem donors wanted out [1]. Kamala was week there. Rather than embracing the actions of Khan, she was silent as was biden. It was a real question if she'd keep her on board because the donors were so against her.
That's the problem Democrats have. Republicans would never hire a Khan in the first place. If the donors squeal loud enough, despite how popular a cabinet pick is for the general public, dems will capitulate. Weakening trust that they are actually trying to fix anything.
I could go on. The boarder is another prime example of democrats utterly failing. Rather than make the case for the humanity of immigrants, they adopted the republican narrative and policies. Biden for nearly his entire admin had identical boarder policies to trump. Almost nobody in the Democrat representees is talking about scaling back ICE (certainly not the leadership). I do not think if they get power, they'd even contemplate reducing the new insane ICE budget.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2024/10/18/kamala-harris-lina-khan-ftc
> If someone were to revive such a movement or if some politicians were to attach themselves to it then I think it would be hugely popular.
Senator Elizabeth Warren's whole schtick was, and still is, pro-consumer. She practically built the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with her own two hands. Sadly the CFPB has now been hamstrung by DOGE and the Trump admin; it's been stripped of much of its capacity to enforce its rules, conduct investigations and protect consumers.
Approval rate doesn't seem to be much of a concern for modern western politicians. The current administrations in the US and some other western countries have abysmally low approval ratings and they're still in power. (This is not a value judgment of the administrations or people who voted for them, just an observation).
consumerism is for the benefit of the corporations, not the consumer. it's to get people to consume more. being pro-consumer leads to things like warranty, forcing me to make my products last longer which leads to people buying less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism
I think Steinbeck’s quip about temporarily embarrassed millionaires has a parallel in how Americans perceive their consumerism: Americans don’t see themselves as a consumer culture, even though we are one.
Biden was one of the most consumer friendly presidents in a while. He did away with a lot of nonsense fees, forced airlines to be more transparent, among other things.
>The people are never to blame.
Hold here. They aren't. Immediately letting 'the people' off the hook for blame is a somewhat modern fallacy. These people democratically choose the leader. You can't just 'not blame' them, as a group, for an eventual failure if they consistently choose poorly.
Yes, but the author doesn't explain why they don't blame citizens. It's reasonable to make the argument that citizens have very little power to fix certain problems. E.g. I haven't had the option of a candidate willing to fix (actually fix) this problem, at any level of government, in my lifetime.
I'd start my response to your comment with Cambridge Analytica and go from there to all the ways that the people can be manipulated into a fabricated consensus by the powers that be.
> Cambridge Analytica
Another American moral failure!
Hang on . . .
In their defense, they can only choose between this or that, and both of them are quite shitty, in the US.
> both of them are quite shitty
That's equally as useful as saying jaywalking and mass murder are both crimes
Sorry, but I find this to be an excuse.
Voters can hold elected officials accountable by not re-electing politicians, not donating to them, and supporting candidates that will better represent them.
The problem is that most citizens are not civically knowledgeable or engaged which is why we continue to have to choose the lesser of two evils that are often the same in policy.
The choice is between Anti Consumer Jerk #1 and Slightly Less Of An Anti Consumer Jerk #2. One of them is going to be in charge. There is no choice to simply not elect someone, and writing in a non-jerk is unrealistic.
A civically informed and engaged population also has a choice to organize against the political establishment, run their own candidates, or create political action committees. The PAC can endorse and otherwise work to support a better candidate to win a primary (See David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC), or if you don't mind getting a little dirty, the PAC can raise enough money to buy the politicians and bend them to their will.
I do admit that this is more difficult for Presidential elections, but certainly this can be effective at the state and local level and arguably could be used effectively within Congress if done right. In fact, we might be seeing some of that begin to happen in states like Maine given the response Graham Platner has already received. Kat Abughazaleh is another example. She's a progressive who is taking a somewhat novel approach to her campaign in Chicago. And of course you have Zohran Mamdani in NYC mayoral race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Platner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kat_Abughazaleh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohran_Mamdani
Shitty in this specific context, arguably.
yeah one wanted a public healthcare option, and the other wants to annihilate the global economy and become a dictator.
but they're both the same (rolls eyes)
Two thirds of American voters took the worst of the options though - either voted for Trump, or didn’t vote at all. It’s a majority problem, and I would totally excuse even third party voters here. But a large chunk of Americans couldn’t even be assed to do the bare minimum!
But we love democracy, right? This is democracy.
Is this 'don't buy American' or is it 'don't support economies with anti-consumer practices'?
It’s both. From the article
> If I start buying European and they start behaving like the US does now, then this rant will just as easily apply to them.
And yet... the article includes examples of European companies behaving like this.
BTW, it's not about how the US behaves. It's about how many companies, some of which happen to be US-based, behave.
It could be about the later, but I'd have to research more to make such a general claim.
I guess it could be extended to any country with similari behavior.
Take the attitude to selling your data at state, country level "just because".
If US citizens love being scr@@d over good for them....
> All this points to a very clear trend, at least for me, that the US is openly an oligarchy.
I read it as don't support oligarchies.
Does this mean not buying from American companies, or things that were made in America? E.g. would this person consider buying a MacBook from Apple that's entirely manufactured in China to be "buying American"?
The author seems to think american companies are anti-consumer. That would certainly include Apple, no matter where a given product is made. Iphones are locked down due to decisions made by Apple execs and employees living and woking in the US, regardless where they are fabricated. It's the lockdown that matters, not where the factory is located.
I don't see why you would even think the geographical location of the manufacturing plant matters.
Stuff that global companies sell in the US are mostly anti-consumer, even if they are foreign. Its because the USians hate government and don't want to prevent companies from abusing their customer base because it would hurt the companies bottom line.
As big companies are mostly held by globalists (very rich libertarians who think, mostly rightfully, that laws don't apply to them and who want to make more money or accrue more power), they take advantage of the non-existant regulations. The issue is that now even medium corps are held by the same type of people in the US, so i think the author might have a good point: avoid buying from large corps in the US, prefer small, at worst medium, or better: small and foreign.
Is there a reason you think that might not count? Obviously the point of not buying X is to avoid supporting X for long-term moral and practical reasons, despite the product's convenience/cheapness/quality/whatever.
It was a genuine question, since I imagine it would be difficult to be a tech enthusiast while having your entire personal supply chain be free of any US-based company. Regardless, kudos to people who try.
It does not have to be all or nothing. You can probably aim to reduce the degree of "US-made-ness" of your tech gadgets. I don't know how effective that is, but it's an option that's available.
the question is who makes the profit. for apple products most of the profit goes to the US. for others, eg. lenovo most of the profits go to hong kong/china.
maybe you can avoid US components with ARM based computers, or loongson, the chinese CPU.
No shade to the poster but we don't really make much, so not buying American is very easy. Besides tomatoes and apples most people in the US probably don't even own anything made here.
Would you call iPhones chinese and not american? No matter, I think obviously people would consider them american, and importantly, the way they function and respect or trample consumer rights is decided by american citizens.
Maybe the US doesn't make much per se, but it certainly decides and influences much.
US produces a lot of digital goods. A lot of high quality digital goods to be precise, which makes this a tragedy. I want so much to just buy Apple products and have the best setup for music production, but I just can't because of what I laid out in the post.
A ton of people own iPhones, drive Fords and Chevrolets, and buy a lot of local produce. Anybody lucky enough to own a house also own a locally-produced one.
Things not made in America don't count as things made in America.
The most fascinating thing in this self-aware rant is that Reason is still around. I haven’t heard of their DAW in what must be 20 years.
n.b. They were shamelessly anticonsumer all along even in the early days. That’s why we just moved on from them and, to me anyway, they fell into obscurity.
He doesn't seem to realize they aren't American either.
I do, and it doesn't hurt the point in the article because the rant isn't directed at all the companies that are anti-consumer. It's directed at the bad example the US market sets for the entire world. It's the leading market, the richest country in the world.
In other words, if US companies didn't misbehave and US were still the largest market in the world, would other companies like Reason be bold enough to screw consumers?
Let's not be cynical here. What happens in the US ripples across the entire free world just because it's in a position of economical and political leadership that it carved for itself by means of force and influence since the great world wars.
> it doesn't hurt the point in the article
Your assertions do not make something true.
A lot of the products he talks about are sold in America, but not necessarily made in America. We don’t really export any non-commodities.
Made me think of this:
https://lemmy.ca/c/boycottus
The Trump tariffs are killing American manufacturers so you will have fewer options to buy American in the future.
https://www.starlinghome.io/ shut down today.
So don't. Lol. What a naive blog post.
You know about America, you can see our big court cases live.[1] You have no idea what happens in Brazilian courts, your own country. (If your courts were open, there'd be a RECAP equivalent.) Same for European countries.
A law says "all evil is unlawful" and the naive think it's a utopia. A ignorância é uma bênção.
[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/
I came to the same conclusion years ago. The best appliances and kitchenware I've ever bought were designed (not necessarily made) in countries which have strongly defended return policies. Thinking La Creuset, Breville, Bosch, etc.
In general you get quality from the EU and the UK/Aus/Can/NZ countries where there's "you may return the product at any time for a full refund if it has a fault" type of laws and a consumer agency to help police enforcement (the law is worthless if the consumer has to take a store to court themselves). I'll also give a viewpoint that Japan and SK, like the USA, have fallen pretty far and i don't include them in the above group. If you look it up it appears stores can easily refuse refunds which is a recipe for crap products which explains the absolutely shit Sony and Samsung have been putting out the past decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
This seems like an empty threat. Okay, so what non-American products do they plan to buy instead? What qualifies something as an American product? Is Apple American because their HQ is there? Are Samsung phones American because they use American Corning Gorilla Glass? Not to mention plenty of other countries have companies that engage in similar practices. As they say, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
The irony of posting this on the literal celebration of upwards mobility and capitalism that is YC is delicious.
I won't lie that I had HN partially in mind when I wrote the post. It honestly started as a way for me to vent, but I thought what the hell, lemme post there, it prolly won't even survive the New page without getting flagged. Didn't really think it would hit front page (but I really was expecting it to get flagged which it eventually did).
I love visiting Brazil, but it’s not like paying 3x the price for an iPhone means you’re less likely to get it stolen in Foz vs CDE (where presumably they bought the phone)
If the writer of the article is here I’m interested in why there’s far more consumer protection southern red states like Santa Catarina vs northern blue states. How come things just don’t get stolen as often there in the Bolsonaro areas?
If your answer is poverty i refer you to CDE vs Foz.
In Brazil consumer protections law are federal laws, not state laws, so there is no different levels of consumer protection between states
The USA isn't a traditional oligarchy. It does have different levels and kinds of power. Most of them are corporate, but some are purely political or ideological (like Trump's regime). Our oligarchy is more like a collection of oligopolies that all share an interest in the political state and economy. After Trump goes away, they will work towards preventing a single leader from working against their interests again. It's all about soft power.
In the US we have always at least acted like we try to buy American made. It feels weird that the rest of the world is only now considering where their stuff is coming from.
Who's "we"? The "buy American" crowd has always been super niche and a very small minority.
In my experience, the buy American crowd says one thing but without exception simply buys the cheapest thing always
What they want is for the best deal to be the local deal, but they are not well off enough to actually take a principled stance on it
Wal-Mart made it a marketing campaign in the 80s. Much of their inventory was US produced with prominent signs all over their stores.
A marketing campaign from 40 years ago doesn't qualify as a predominant culture.
It was the initiative of the largest retailer. You have had to live in a bubble to not know this.
The rest of the world absolutely has always had some who consider where their stuff is coming from and some who don't - same as the US.
I'm not making a point only to buy local. I'm making a point not to buy American today, if things don't improve.
Freedom fries are off the table?
Tasty. I guess not. Potatoes grow everywhere LOL