Take the attitude to selling your data at state, country level "just because".
If US citizens love being scr@@d over good for them....
> If I start buying European and they start behaving like the US does now, then this rant will just as easily apply to them.
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
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.
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.
maybe you can avoid US components with ARM based computers, or loongson, the chinese CPU.
I don't see why you would even think the geographical location of the manufacturing plant matters.
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.
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.
Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.
> 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.
Maybe the US doesn't make much per se, but it certainly decides and influences much.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's equally as useful as saying jaywalking and mass murder are both crimes
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://www.starlinghome.io/ shut down today.
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.
gchamonlive•2h ago
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2•2h ago
kevin_thibedeau•2h ago
widowlark•2h ago
kg•1h ago
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.
kevin_thibedeau•1h ago
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2•1h ago
IncreasePosts•1h ago
_3u10•1h ago
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?
gchamonlive•14m ago