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From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Date: Tue, 7-Mar-89 04:05:54 EST
Message-ID: <1989Mar7.040554.12372@sq.com>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Ethics of crippler circuitry
References: <176@ucl-cs.UUCP> <1989Mar2.193443.17196@sq.com> <41cf7d93.ccb2@apollo.COM>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto

Quoting one of three rather similar followups to my item:

> You may be missing a point here.  Let's say that each incremental machine
> costs $X.  Let's also say that R&D costs for the machine are 10000 * $X.
> ... In the course of their sales and marketing research they have found
> that there are a lot of people out there who would like to buy the
> machine but can't afford $Y.

No, I didn't miss this.  The question I was discussing was not whether
the manufacturer has a motivation to engage in this behavior -- clearly they
do -- but whether one can legitimately question their ethics when they do.

It may be argued that the ethical manufacturer, in the above situation,
would simply reduce the price of the machine after selling some number
of them at the initial price.  It may also be argued that there is no
ethical obligation for them to do so.

Mark Brader			"Alas, there is NO SUCH THING as
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto		'NO SUCH THING as privileged access.'"
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com			-- Alan Silverstein