A case aginst forced updates
I am arguing here in regards to personally owned hw.
I personally think that the arguments in recent years were very heavily skewed in support of this and I would like to propose here counterarguments that I don't feel are considered enough are when I see this come up in various places. Or at least not said enough.
First and foremost what forcibly pushing updates actually means is the developer being given blank check to change the functionality of your device in any way they please. In case of various locked down hw such as smart things, game consoles, tvs, ereaders or others there is often not even a choice to use different sw because it is artificially blocked. Only real check against negative effects of this is legislation and potential of enough public outrage to impact future sales. From the state of various mainstream sw products it can be seen how well it works.
It creates a culture where pushing anti features is significantly easier and tech literacy is significantly harder to attain if only as a secondary effect of less transparent, more obtuse and more complicated systems, frequently with no actual need for more complexity which is not rooted in desire to increase monetization.
It also means it is harder as a user to guard against faulty updates.
Normalization of this behavior also means that any can do this with no pushback because it is the fabled default, the one where fundamental flaws are brushed aside while alternatives are rejected over cosmetic problems.
There could be argument meant for critical parts of critical sw such as os or browser, but if so it should be made individually and not be implicit. There is usually no meaningful individual control over feature updates, not just security ones. I also don't think forced updates for games on Steam for example can be argued to be something that benefits security.
I think most of your frustration boils down to these problems:
If these were rectified, archiving and sharing factory firmware would not be a legal grey area. Flashing back to restore lost functionality becomes possible.
And that would mitigate almost every problem with mandatory patching. At least from a hardware perspective.
Yeup. Mandatory patching, unfortunately, has too many upsides to not be a thing. If you could start from scratch with OS design and do it all over from the ground up with the knowledge we had now and focus on security/privacy more than performance, MAYBE, you could get there, but that's not happening.
Sadly even if it did, I don't think that would stop bad practices like the ones OP is frustrated about from happening. They'd just use different vectors.
These days, the problem is that a lot of software and devices aren't standalone. They connect to API's over the Internet. If an old version of an API is discontinued then you might be screwed anyway.
If you want to run old versions of software forever with no changes, it can't connect to the Internet itself. (Even securing a web connection requires downloading new root certificates sometimes.) Also, if you don't have security patches, maybe you shouldn't connect old software to the Internet?
Contrast with stable file formats. If you have an old mp3 file, it should still play. Retro gaming is similar. Basic websites can be pretty stable if they're self-contained. These things don't depend on external Internet API's.
And that's why they should provide proper API documentation on request and configuration options so that hobbyists wishing to maintain or replace a deprecated or obsolete API have the option to do so.
It's why games should always have a publicly accessible server for self-hosting. Because a lot of the justification for MMOs is ongoing support costs....but what if somebody would rather bear those costs themselves to have an unbroken experience?
Because otherwise people have to do this, or throw out perfectly good hardware because there was no option for local control.
I don't feel that old yet but I also feel that unauthorized internet connections should not be normal and should not have to be managed layer above and when that one is compromised(Windows, smartphones, smart anything, take your pick) layer above even that.
If it genuinely needs that connection for positive action from the developer that the user actually wants then forced updates still should not be a thing. If the sw cannot connect it cant work and should report the problem and suggest a solution. This should also be limited to functionality that cannot be done on device or on selfhosted server.
But we dont live in that world.
I always hate this phrase. It implies that we cannot make change against it, that discussing the options are futile. We did once live in this world. We could live there again. But it involves teaching people about what once was, and why they should strive to attain it in the future (though preferably with more reliability). Critical Race Theory is not wrong, we don't live in a world where it is acceptable to teach it to a large quantity of people. But with enough push to build public support, we get there.
It often takes decades. But we're finally hitting a point where average people are starting to grasp the ramifications of DRM, particularly within the context of right to repair.
In my mind, the biggest obstacle, more than anything else, is that people are (passively) taught that there is some sort of intrinsic difference between a PC, a phone, a game console, their car's infotainment center, and their smart TV. When the reality is that the primary determining factor between them is who decides what software you are permitted to run on which devices.
I agree that having apps and devices that work offline is desirable. But it seems like it’s going against a bigger trend: communication is the main reason people buy computers nowadays. Working offline is the exception. Even for things that could be downloaded, often we don’t. Streaming video is the usual way to watch movies.
Many apps are just “front ends” and core functionality happens on the server. Most obviously websites, but a lot of mobile and desktop apps work that way too.
For network communications, Internet standards and common file formats do help, but standardization is a slow process, and over the long term, even the standards change. Surfing the web with a ten-year-old web browser is unlikely to work very well.
With a well-defined, self-contained format like PDF’s, data can outlive apps. But getting consensus on these things is hard.
ConsumerFriendlyOS v1.0 design proposal:
No mandatory patching; however, check online for vulnerabilities when running the software, using a relatively neutral and well known database (like the just-barely-not-defunded CVE database).
Flash a warning icon on the taskbar if vulnerabilities were found. User can click the icon to get a list of vulnerabilities. User can dismiss the list if they think they know what they're doing.
The people who most need updates are the least likely to want to install updates, or to understand what that sort of dialog would even mean.
Fundamentally, I think the default has to be automatic patching. I want automatic patching, even — 99% of the time, I want software to be up-to-date all of the time, and I don't want to have to worry about it. The problem here is the 1% case, so I think any solution needs to start with the assumption that it's being used as an exception rather than the rule.
Do people like or want forced updates? I feel like in tech circles, forced updates have always largely been considered bad. One of the first times I came across this controversy was with the PS3 and Sony removing the ability to install Linux or BSD. There was whole class-action lawsuit with it. Microsoft's Windows Updates seem to break things left and right. As such, I know lots of IT departments explicitly turn off automatic updates. Or try their hardest to because Microsoft doesn't always make it easy.
And even among non-tech folks, I don't think they really care one way or another. Though I feel like these folks would lean against it, since updates change things, and regular users often dislike change with their devices. Not exactly the same, but I'm reminded of Facebook changing their UI several times over the years, with people often complaining about it. Same with "new" reddit.
Cybersecurity might be the only area where forced updates might be somewhat appreciated? But even then, I think the Crowdstrike meltdown last year showed why that's not always great. Who knows what new vulnerabilities might be introduced as the developers try to patch another vulnerability.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, though I don't fully agree either (skybrian touches on the reasoning). I guess I'm just confused where you're seeing such massive support for forced updates. That isn't coming from the corporations and/or developers themselves.
Automatic default updates are great. Even making them mildly difficult to turn off might be a good idea.
But if somebody puts in a registry key, GPO, or equivalent that setting should be honored forever. It shows that they are confident enough to know why they are disabling them.
Also, settings should never revert without a patch note warning that it might/will occur.
My observations of "normal" people is that, left on their own, they won't apply security updates and they grumble about automatic updates changing minor things from their habit.
Realistically, bad hygiene harms others and running around with unpatched security issues is the digital equivalent of not washing your hands.
I'm now fully in the "updates should be automatic" camp, so long as security patches are decoupled from feature releases and breaking changes aren't automatically pushed. i.e. let me choose when to install the major release, so I can make sure software I use is compatible.
Similarly, I'm fully "over" PC gaming nowadays and exclusively use consoles (+/- FFXIV on my Mac). I expect the things I buy to just work, and I will be pissed if I have to do some sort of maintenance. If I'm going to mess around with software, it's going to be because I'm writing it, not cleaning up someone else's mess.
As a functionally normal person at this point (I've done basic customer service IT work in the past but I've not stayed caught up as my career was not in that direction.) I also prefer automatic updates. The occasional inconvenience is worth me getting new features or security protection the majority of the time, and without them I'd never remember to update. As it is I tend to postpone and forget about them a lot (or our IT dept is yelling at me to restart because I do not do that regularly)
I dislike things like "your purchased book/game/etc is no longer available" as an "update". But that's tangential I think.
Revoking a license to an individual ebook feels functionally different to me than a firmware update that disables your ability to buy your own toner. (Also printers suck, are clinically psychotic and I won't buy one unless I can get an absolute basic, dumb one anymore)
The type of license revocation I'm talking about isn't really an "update" by the standards we're discussing, at least in my mind. It's not even an automatic application update, much less an OS update.
Like I said, I specifically don't like it, I just think it's tangential to this specific convo. It's absolutely still shitty corporate behavior.
Though it's not quite requiring my device to be online. I can throw a kindle (or my phone) on airplane mode and keep my library books forever, I just can't get new books. But thinking about it now, the ability to work with a library actually helps justify the license model... Like a smidge. A very, very, tiny smidge.
Anyway, those are my 2¢ I suppose. I don't care much if it's an option to turn updates off, preferably one that demonstrates at least the bare amount of technical knowledge and willingness (like I could look it up and do it even if I wouldn't)
Personal preferences are personal preferences.
I also want things to just work but I am aware that they inevitably wont and at that point the option to adjust manually is preferable even when I will not choose to use it.
Similarly for updates. I do want automatic updates I dont have to think about but I also want to control their behaviour including turning them off when needed because inevitably they will bring something I dont like.
There is no user friendly reason while both cannot be true.
I don't object to you being able to refuse at least the majority of updates, there's probably an argument for some sort of security update if it makes your device a threat to other devices, but yeah. I was just responding as a relative normie in this space.
The vast majority of updates are things I should probably have and I want my apps and such to do that on their own so I'm not fussing with them.
Pretty much everyone hates automatic (forced) updates and they always have. It was normalized by phone manufacturers and consoles, and then the OS makes and everyone else hopped on board. While there are definitely real security issues that get addressed by them, companies have used them to push unpopular shady shit enough that I 100% do not trust any of them. Weirdly, the biggest offenders to me feel like TV and smaller electronics manufacturers. Like TV makers pushing ads and adding new and disgusting ways to spy on users and sell the data or printer makers pushing updates to prevent third party ink/toner.
Also since you mentioned it, as someone that ran Linux on their PS3, the measly settlement check we received was not nearly enough.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say it's just not feasible to live in a world without regular updates for the vast majority of internet connected devices anymore. All of these points have been mentioned by others but I think it's worth collecting together:
APIs are an inescapable part of software design. It's what powers every integration between systems like interacting with third party services, allowing Internet accessibility and management, and likely a lot of the getting and saving of data used on the device. And they change/break all the time. Sometimes it's our own, sometimes it's third party and we have no control over it. It can be a violation of policy/legality, unfeasible, or unsafe to let consumers have access to overriding how this communication works so the idea of just leaving everything open as a configuration option is a non-starter.
Selectively applying fixes to lots of previous versions and allowing users to only pull down these patches is one solution to this. It's also very time consuming (thus expensive) work. When considering the business incentive, this is an expensive additional cost that encourages users to use your device in a way you don't want them to use it! Not happening. There are some exceptions here for critical vulnerabilities but even then there are limits to what can or will be done. The vast majority of fixes will be pushed to the latest code only.
Your hardware, whatever it is, probably "does" less than you think. Even services which you'd expect to be 100% on device may be making calls for licensing, translation/internationalization, authentication, logging/perf monitoring, time, location, email/sms/push notifications, etc etc. All of these could be API driven.
By not having the latest updates you're putting your device at greater risk of being compromised. You can be the smartest cyber security engineer on the planet with every protective measure under the sun - if you cant modify the code - this will still be true.
So I'd say always enable updates. But.. I think you should never enable nightly build or early access updates unless it's software you really care about improving. You're basically being the free beta tester for stuff they've decided isn't stable enough to release yet.
I think there’s an argument for being able to disable automatic/forced updates, but I think it should require some hoop-jumping and maybe even a couple of scare screens to do.
My reasoning is based almost entirely on the sheer number of XP/Vista/7 machines (and the occasional Mac) I’d come across in the wild that were so wildly out of date it was beyond belief. Such machines teem with vulnerabilities and are among the most frequently hit by “spray and pray” mass-targeted malware. They’re what botnots are largely composed of, and they’re the main reason forced updates became the norm.
Technically capable users are less likely to let things slip into such grave states of disrepair, most likely just pushing updates off until a time when it’s more convenient, and so can more responsibly make use of an off switch. If they decide to never update and get pwned, well that’s their own fault. Aunt Betty on the other hand might not be the most well-suited person to hand such a switch to.