Let's say I bought a chair. It's got four legs, a seat, a back and that's it. It does the job. I can sit on it. I can stack it on other chairs to get it out of the way. It's a bit hard, but I don't need to sit on it all the time. It's a chair. What could possibly go wrong?
The first update puts a cushion on the seat. Which I have to pay a monthly subscription fee to use. It's an opt-out cushion, too. And the only way I can do that is to run through a long, complex process to unsubscribe, talking to User Experience Representatives who keep repeating the benefits, offer reduced costs for a short period and only relent when I tell them I'm calling the Chair Police who'll tear them a new one for foisting this kind of crap on unsuspecting consumers1.
The second update removes a leg. This is supposed to make it more efficient. However, they've introduced a bug. They haven't changed the orientation of the other legs. So the chair falls over whenever I try sitting on it. This update is hastily downgraded but now the fourth leg has to be attached manually. With a proprietary screw. And the tool to reattach it costs more than the chair, and it's ONLY available from the manufacturer.
The first major upgrade turns the legs, the seat and back into modular items, each with a subscription attached. You can get parts made of different materials, in different colours, and it's all very customisable. And the marketing kicks-in to say these changes allow you to make the most gorgeous chair you like, with powerful tools that make it completely customisable for any and all users.
I can just get the basic tier (i.e., the chair I started with) but it's now got advertising attached. But within a year, that tier is cancelled without recourse. Because it's connected to the internet to serve the ads. And someone's worked out how to hack the chair through that connection so it's always taking photos of your arse to sell to bum fetishists.
Several additional points to keep in mind with technology
- You only need security upgrades when you make something over-complicated and always connected to the internet
- marketing budgets are directly proportional to the number of pointless changes being made to technology to make customers fear they're missing out on cool stuff (FOMO)
- there's nothing wrong with a technology that does one thing and does it well
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Something similar happened when I decided to cancel my subscription to Adobe Clip Art. It turned out the subscription was for a year and there were penalties for quitting early. None of this was made clear at sign-up. I spent a good hour on the phone being told it wasn't possible to cancel immediately, it was only a small amount of money, they'd suspend the subscription for no charge until it came to roll-over, at which point I'd need to contact them AGAIN to cancel it before another years subscription kicked off. It took a threat to call the Telecommunications Ombudsman to get them to cancel the damn thing. ↩