The feds are coming for John Deere over the right to repair

The Feds are coming, and I hope they keep going and going until there isn't a single product or service left that dares dictate what you can do after the transaction is complete.

Say hello to your new Subscription products

I've been rolling the idea around that perhaps if a product is encumbered by a subscription then it's not a first sale and the product counts as inventory. And gets taxed as such.

That is exactly how it should work.

If the user does not own it, someone does and the accounting should play out accordingly.

I don't know the first thing about such things, but I'll bet if companies were pushed on this they'd suddenly start asserting that it's a lease, which I think is typically taxed similarly to a sale.

I hate the "everything's a subscription" business model that's taking over everything. We'll achieve peak serfdom when the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat is bought on a subscription model.

> I'll bet if companies were pushed on this they'd suddenly start asserting that it's a lease, which I think is typically taxed similarly to a sale.

A lease allows for the buyer to own the product, free and clear of the seller.

Does it work that way for ISPs that "lease" their modems? This is the first time I've ever considered this idea that the hardware would still be inventory. Does inventory get taxed annually or monthly? Seems like the monthly lease fees would more than cover that.

If it were feasible to charge you for your own heartbeats, companies absolutely would. Infinite growth is a poison pill idea - it brought us to where we are today, and would drag us to the future you outlined, unless the folly is abandoned.

Not in real estate. There is technically no difference between leasing and renting, other than the things that are colloquially associated with. A lease agreement (or rental agreement) may or may not have a clause offering the borrower an opportunity to take ownership.

Rent might also refer to the price portion of a leasing agreement (or rental agreement). So in shorthand usage, “the lease” might encompass all terms of borrowing something, including the price, but “the rent” might just refer to the price.

Intriguing idea! Some thoughts:

- If a consumer buys a car with heated seats and an option to activate the heated seats as a subscription, but the consumer elects not to subscribe, do the inactive heaters still count as inventory? If so, what if the car or heaters get destroyed but the automaker doesn't ever learn about the destruction?

- Would this apply to e-books and media? In today's market, if I buy an e-book or media from a streaming service, I'm not buying a copy, but rather a revocable license with a one-time fee. It seems like that e-book or media is inventory for the book seller.

Water is already a subscription model.

Food sometimes is, and honestly a more centralised food subscription system could drive down the cost of food by making demand more predictable and enabling better economy of scale.

That's a perfect example. They demand it back at the end of your contract, there's not even an option to keep it, let alone modify it.

I remember reading that, back in the 50s or 60s, the phone company owned "your" phone. It was permanently attached to the wall, and you weren't allowed to do anything to alter it. Did AT&T pay taxes on those phones as inventory?

> It was permanently attached to the wall

That's a bit hyperbolic. It was just hung on the wall. If it was permanent, they wouldn't be able to take it back. Thanks for the reminder that we're to the point in time that "kids today" honestly have no memory of land line phones.

But yes, the phones were only available from Ma Bell, and you did have a monthly fee for them. They did have table top versions as well, so it wasn't just wall mounts. They were heavy solid well built devices. Once it was opened for anyone to make, they became cheap light weight plastic pieces of crap.

Sorry, "hard-wired" would have been more clear.

I had a landline when I was a kid, but my parents got rid of it shortly after I left for college.

How is water a subscription model? You pay for the water you take from the tap. After you take it, it’s yours.

Nothing wrong with growth,it's natural. The population grows and so does the money supply in turn. This is good. What is not good is when a particular company is trying to retain ALL growth of certain segments for themselves through abusive leverage.

A principle that stuck out to me as a child was that our society prioritized lower prices for consumers as a whole over the prosperity of any one company or industry.

We let companies grow to the point where they now subvert the will of the people.

IMHO it should be on the automaker to learn about the destruction. They should have to carry it as inventory just like anything else. There should be real expenses to it, not just the ability to throw it out there with some tech that blocks it unless a user registers and pays the subscription, and not have to do anything about it. I think they should also be required to pay for repairs if/when it breaks. If they want to retain ownership of the heated seats so they can charge a subscription for it, then they need to own (pun intended) the responsibilities of ownership.

While I do think that's fair, my personal hope is that such a requirement would make them stop this asinine practice.

They did! And the not so nice part of that was being stuck with the phones they supply. Now, as simple phones, I liked them. Audio quality was great, the device did not break easily and all that. No worries. But, if you wanted to do anything connected to that phone, or the line, that was off limits!

The nice part was it being their phone, they took care of it. Service was a call away and the service tech could do what it takes and have few worries.

Begin sidebar:

Our wall mounted phone was surrounded by phone numbers and other bits of information. I started it one day writing the name of a burger joint we used to call all the time by the phone.

Mom was pissed, but Dad liked it! Next time we went to call the number was right there!

And so it began...

When I left home for the last time, I looked at that phone and wall for a long time. Many years of our lives were there. Friends, family, businesses, other things like EMS, poison control, various hotlines were all there organized fairly well given the organic way it started.

I wish I had taken a picture!

Seeing that happen and being a part of it all is probably one of the more potent reminders, to me of course, of what the pre-digital times were like.

End sidebar

If one was not returned, they charged what it cost to replace it.

Wish I knew about inventory. My guess is yes! They would have to do accounting on all the modems anyway. Service, where they are all at, serial numbers and more.

When one went bad, it usually involved either a visit to the ISP, or a tech shows up with a new one and a few records get updated and the modem ends up home.

Cable TV boxes are another example!

I do know those were inventoried. A friend went to work as a tech for a local cable company. (Yes, they did tell me how to enable decryption on all channels for at least one model...) They fixed the incoming boxes and those units went right back out to homes.

The units were purchased a few times per year to balance subscriber growth and attrition. Good repair metrics saved a TON of money. The units were from one to a few hundred dollars a pop!

Rental was $7.99 / month at one point I could remember.

Say the box was $150, at that rental rate the box becomes a minor profit item after a year and a half, right?

Well, most cable boxes got used a decade or more, especially when the company did not have to change its encryption tech.

That is a 4 to 5x return on the purchase price. Maybe 3x return after attrition, failed returns and repair costs get woven in.

Not a bad deal for them. And as the user, not many worries, but also basically zero options.

An example from cable boxes was serial ports and input and output ports either disabled or nerfed to the point of poor usability really sucked for anyone wanting to use the gear technically, or as part of an automation of some kind.

Very interesting idea.

When I buy something I must pay sales tax to the government. Later, if it turns out I never owned it and ownership is revoked, can I get the sales tax back?