You buy a smart speaker, a thermostat, a baby monitor. A year or two later it stops working, because the company that made it turned off a server or stopped sending updates. The hardware never failed. You are holding a working machine the manufacturer decided to retire. New York has
One of the biggest anti-ownership stories of the last couple months came from the everything, everywhere, can’t-get-away-from-it-store: Amazon. In early April, the company announced that starting today, Kindle devices made before 2013 will no longer be able to access the Kindle store to
Bambu Labs, a major 3D printer manufacturer, has moved to enshittify their printers by severely limiting device owners’ ability to use alternate software on their devices. When a developer used the company’s open source software to restore interoperability with Orca Slicer, a popular slicing software that gives users more
With the rise of streaming, it’s obvious you don’t own the shows you watch on Netflix or Hulu. You lose access to content the minute your bill is overdue. When it comes to the TV on which you watch that show, however, it sure feels like you own
I wonder how much you think about your data when you decide to buy an IoT device. If you’ve been watching Louis’ channel for long enough, you probably think about it more than the average consumer. Maybe it’s your first thought. Maybe it’s something you weigh against
We started the Consumer Rights Wiki just over a year ago to create a comprehensive resource for the collection and presentation of anti-consumer practices. A resource to empower those seeking to understand and push back against the companies that are forever looking to extract more from us, whilst giving
People who own doorbell cameras bought them, in part, to keep people out of their homes. As long as their video footage is stored on corporate servers, consumers could inadvertently be letting others in. At the heart of security is control. If you own the video generated by your camera,
As hard as it is to believe, it's already been a year since the Consumer Rights Wiki was first launched (albeit under a different name—real OGs remember the Consumer Action Taskforce Wiki!). One year on, we've hit 1000 content articles, and the Wiki continues to
Molekule is an air purifier company with a, well, less-than-pure record. When you pay $1000 for a smart air purifier, though, you probably expect it to do two at least two things: purify your air, and work with an app. Back in September, Molekule, which makes the Air
There are so many ways companies screw with their customers today. They love to change their products after they’re sold, or add “proprietary” versions of a refill where a generic one would suffice. We’ve seen it with printer cartridges, tractors, and even air and water filters. In this
The gig is up. Microsoft has ended Windows 10 support in the U.S. and most of the world. The announcement comes despite the company’s commitment to provide users in Europe with no-strings-attached, free security updates for an additional year. Despite 40.84% of the estimated 1.
We started FULU Foundation to fight back against the erosion of ownership rights over our digital devices and content. In this newsletter, we’ll be highlighting not only the corporate practices that infringe on your Right to Own your stuff, but also what you can do to push back. This