Internet companies usually have clauses that they can terminate the agreement at any time for any reason, including “because they feel like it”. They usually don’t have to tell you why, either.
Same deal with all the “licensing” things and “digital goods ownership”. In two words: you don’t.
But it’s been that way for ages.
Let’s be real here: They are trying to create a “platform”^TM and “ecosystem”^TM to later wall off, embrace, extend, extinguish or otherwise enshittify.
There is no actual problem they are solving.
It’s venture capital bait.
That’s not good, but it’s not like we can switch to a more secure alternative. ;)
Oh sure. They could do this. But they don’t.
But there is absolutely no way to verify what they are doing, no fear of getting caught and thus there is no incentive to behave with integrity.
At least my state of knowledge is that this: https://reproducible-builds.org/ isn’t fully functional and even if it were what HP does on their machines is closed source stuff.
And even if there were companies or organizations that are big enough to enforce transparency, like a big multinational or a government, there will be plenty of cases where smaller companies with sensitive data can’t, like doctors offices or independent lawyers.
It is way easier to charge for a “data privacy” subscription tier and then still just not honoring the wording of that, than to actually put in the effort.
If anyone seriously believes HP will develop two copies of operating software, one with “send everything to HP” and one without, they are delusional.
It may very well be that there will be a contract saying something completely different than what is happening in those machines.
…and whose fault is that, private publishing industry? Hmmm? Who didn’t invest here?
Also #politics for allowing it to happen of course.
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