I have no idea why you’re being downvoted because you’re right. You don’t really own hardly any of the software you buy. You don’t buy the software, you buy a license to use it in almost all commercial cases. It would be financial suicide for companies to revoke those licenses in most cases, but it still is what it is.
Dnn@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Just because software vendors legally made it that way doesn’t make it right. Also probably the main reason, many people don’t have any qualms pirating.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Right. This is only “right” because tech corporations were allowed to undermine the meaning of ownership without any attempt to protect customer rights. The concept of “buying a license” is fundamentally contradictory, because without the transfer of ownership, nothing was “bought”. Yet they still present this licensing process as if it was a purchase, which is deceptive.
Many take it for granted that this is just the nature of digital purchases, but the digital market simply created the opportunity for companies to redefine purchases with less resistance. Now they are trying to do the same with physical objects: physical media, technological devices, vehicles, so forth, trying to establish that people didn’t own what they bought.
And the basis of all of this is simply that they wrote some text that they said so. Can you imagine if customers tried something like this? They would be laughed out of the room. It’s a sham. The flimsiest possible pretense of legitimacy. Yet it’s treated as valid because they have the lawyers to defend it while the average customer does not, and governments completely neglect their role to advocate in favor of the public.
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Sure, but I’m not making a statement about the ethics of it. I’m just stating that that’s the current reality. That’s how commercial software is sold. I’ll freely agree it’s a bullshit practice and we should actually be able to own things, but that’s a whole different discussion.
ripcord@lemmy.world 6 months ago
K, but conquered4 certainly seemed to be either implying it or making an irrelevant distinction, since the comment they replied to was a “should” kind of comment.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Especially when you’re pirated version generally cannot be made to stop working via vendor rug-pull, and will continue to work in perpetuity at least up until it is no longer compatible with current operating systems.