I thought I bought a camera, but no DJI sold me a LICENSE to use their camera [video]
92 comments
·April 21, 2025Frieren
inopinatus
My vote could be swayed by a policy platform making it not merely forbidden, but outright criminal, to market software and hardware that cannot function without assignment of a user id. Everything from drones to games.
In many cases this would thoroughly annoy certain authoritarian regimes that are normalised as totalitarian surveillance states. Their exports would be disrupted. What a pity.
jackvalentine
So, world of Warcraft is illegal now?
NoelJacob
When Europe tries to do this, many cry as over regulation.
numpad0
I first encountered this pattern in a rare wearable device, over a decade ago. I bought it from someone and had to contact them to deregister the device.
The foot in the door was theft prevention. Crime rates in the targeted regions of those devices was the original motivation and the enabler. From Chesterton's Fence principle, that has to be solved before the zero consumer ownership problem can be solved.
loki49152
We don't need new regulations. This is probably covered by commercial fraud statutes, as they represented the sale of the device as a sale of tangible personal property. There is no condition required to complete that purchase - the offer is of the physical device and the implied ability to use that device for its obvious purpose.
bryanrasmussen
we need new regulations - the solution currently would be following what you say and suing the company in I guess small claims court or a class action suit for lots of people mad about the same thing against a single company that they make drag out for years while making money doing the same scam and then the payout will just be the cost of doing business.
The small claims courts solution of course not everybody has the time or resources to do that, so the company wins that way.
We need new regulations that stops it before it gets to the point where you have to go to small claims court or class action to redress the wrong.
rendaw
New regulation i.e. more civil law. Which require you to sue in a small claims court to be enforced. How does this change anything, when as GP said there are already civil laws?
geon
No, you need a government that enforces it’s laws.
When people are speeding, you don’t need individuals to sue them in small claims court to enforce the speed limit. Having that requirement for consumer goods is bizarre.
inopinatus
Omitting a regulator makes enforcement a civil matter and the entire burden is placed on the consumer, which is to say, the legal scales are tipped throughly in favour of rogue manufacturers. Good luck suing DJI; you’ll obtain neither satisfaction nor restitution, and it’ll take years of being strung along by lawyers to realise it.
The even worse outcome of failing to protect the consumer at the point of sale is you’ve tacitly swallowed the tenets of an authoritarian surveillance state.
giyokun
We don't need no regulations.... We don't need no source control... No dark sarcasm in the GitHub comments. Hey Hacker News, leave us code alone.
captainmuon
I would go further, it should not be (just) forbidden, but taboo. Just like it is taboo to install a camera in a bathroom or to listen in to private conversations.
If I have a thing, that thing should obey me. Be it a crowbar, a PC, a smart lamp or whatever. It's a value in and of itself that I can trust in my things. What about criminals? Sure, it is convenient a car can spy on a criminal and tell the police where they are, but we shouldn't allow that. Just like it would be convenient to force priests and lawyers to tell there secrets, but we as a society decided that there is greater value in confidentiality.
I mean especially for a society like the US which is traditionally individualistic and distrustful towards government etc., it should be a matter of principle that "my stuff" doesn't spy on my and serves me and no one else.
Abishek_Muthian
When the governments all over the world are making their citizens download mobile apps I doubt whether there will be any regulation prohibiting hardware manufacturers forcing apps on consumers.
rvba
Also changing software and licences.
I bought an android phone that worked and soon it will reset every 3 days, so Im unreachable unless I enter the PIN. What kills the idea of having a secondary phone just in case.
alpaca128
As far as I know an Android phone isn’t unreachable after reboot, it simply has the same locked screen as always. The only difference is the difficulty to unlock it without the PIN. So in your case it would reboot once (not every 3 days) and then just continue doing nothing.
poincaredisk
Well after the reboot Android enters the Before First Unlock state which is significantly more secure. I don't know if that influences the ability to receive regular phone calls, but I'm pretty sure Whatsapp/signal calls won't work.
ChrisMarshallNY
I own an iPhone (and iPad). It forces me to re-enter my device password, every couple of days. Has done that, for ages.
I think that can be disabled, though. I know of a couple of folks that won’t even enable Face ID. I think that’s insane. The phone has our entire life on it. The thought of having that much information available to any pickpocket is sobering.
I refuse to use custom apps for things like banking and store loyalty, etc. I keep a photo of my store loyalty card’s barcode in my Photos app, because it does get me significant discounts, occasionally, but I won’t install their app.
Most of these custom apps seem to be pretty shoddy quality, in my opinion (I’m a snob, though. Many folks don’t seem to mind). They seem to be written with some kind of hybrid system, and some are little more than webviews.
stavros
Or you can just disable the feature. Let's not brand every security feature as evil, please, it's disingenuous.
tgsovlerkhgsel
Most of the abuse is already forbidden under GDPR, it just doesn't get enforced.
bbarnett
There's a lot of this, and it's a real problem.
We need to make small claims court far more accessible. But outside of the GDPR, there's also just weirdness in terms of what is covered where. I can appreciate that having laws at the county level, the municipal level can be onerous to comply with, so you want things at the national level -- if not international.
But as soon as you do that, some asshat works to reduce regulation because "regulation bad" without any qualifiers. And then as you say, lack of enforcement, is that alternative to this.
Give them their laws, make them feel as if things have been done, but then don't enforce. You're in the same boat, but people "feel" better.
This is a bit of a tangent, but where I live you have to cook a hamburger to safe temperatures. It is illegal to do otherwise, unless it is freshly ground in house, and we have actual, real inspectors that will ensure safe handling practices.
(This isn't me railing about eating raw meat, I eat my steak med-rare. But that's a steak, if you're going to cook a hamburger that way, you need to wash the outside, grind it up, and cook+eat it within hours. Many restaurants are buying mass produced burger paddies and not even cooking them, which is pure insane.)
Yet when I was in California, it's OK to just present a charred outside, a raw inside, along with loads of parasites. The restaurant is covered if they put up a sign saying something about 'raw meat can make you sick' or whatever.
So every restaurant puts up the sign, then just doesn't care about cooking it to safe temps. Yee-haw, FREEDOM!
Point is, people themselves, everywhere ... whether it's a small business or just their customers, don't even know, understand, or really care.
And this is the true problem. People can't even understand the risks of raw meat, something I was taught in public school when, oh I don't know, freakin' 10 years old!
While it doesn't seem that difficult to people on this forum likely, it surely is for the average person. Clearly.
dsign
I have a washing machine that won't let me use it fully without installing an app that asks for permission to track my GPS coordinates at all time, in my phone. HomeWhiz.There should be a law against selling new hardware that demands that sort of thing to function, or to have full functionality. But I would be happy if procedures to bring class-auction lawsuits against companies that engage in this kind of bait-and-ransom were somehow simpler.
mjevans
At the very least, when you the current end user refuse to agree to their terms of service, the model should have to be returned, at the manufacturer's expense, irrespective of condition.
Think of renters stuck in a place with units like that! They too should have the right to require un-tracked appliances and be free from being forced to agree to additional contract overheads that aren't obvious in the price / what should be reasonable terms.
phire
In many countries, the consumer protection laws are strong enough that consumers probably can return such appliances, as long as the facts about app requirements weren't made abundantly clear to them at the store.
Though, it's usually the store who's responsible for that refund, not the manufacturer . Still, stores are motivated to reduce return rates and will put pressure on manufactures to not do stupid things.
hoistbypetard
For things you can carry back to the store, that works well. When I buy a new washing machine, though, it's a bit more complicated:
- I go to the store and make the purchase.
- A delivery crew brings the washing machine to my house.
- They unhook my old washing machine and take it away.
- They attach my new washing machine in its place.
Even with the strongest reasonable protection laws I can imagine, the most the store would be obligated to do if the new machine is unsatisfactory would be to detach the new machine and take it away. And I've probably had to pay for one or two visits from the installers at that point. Regardless of whether the extra visit from the installers carries any extra cost for me, there's enough hassle associated with this that I can easily imagine keeping a machine where I'm not happy with some app requirement because it'd be too much trouble to make the change.
alwa
Obligatory link to Doctorow’s Unauthorized Bread (2019), a DRM-themed, uh… thriller? polemic?… of a novella. Deals with the themes you discuss: large appliance manufacturer malfeasance, intrusive exploitation beyond the scope of the product’s purpose, renters’ relative helplessness for the appliances to service their daily needs.
https://craphound.com/unauthorized-bread/
Discussion here (2020, 123 comments):
hliyan
Just yesterday I saw an ad for an "AI enabled dishwasher". I suspect things are about to get even worse.
throw310822
I am astounded at how much this short, humorous quote from Philip Dick's "Ubik" was prescient:
"The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."
Looking forward to argumentative washing machines.
AStonesThrow
> Looking forward to argumentative washing machines.
Thanks to all upthread for the reminder.
Last week I was sorta forced to install the app for the laundry room at the place I am renting.
They previously used another big service provider, and had troubles with plumbing and there was undoubtedly finger-pointing between the laundry service and the landlady, and eventually, landlady switched to a new laundry service provider, which has a very generic-sounding app.
So you can pay two ways (no coins and no currency): obtain a stored-value card from the little kiosk in the laundry room (it will cost you, like $10 just for the card with $0 on it.) or you can install the mobile app, and load money into your account. (The account is not shared with any stored-value card, so they'll be separate.)
So last time, I opted for a card, and I immediately punched a hole in it, so I could string it to a lanyard. That disabled the card! It is some sort of RFID/NFC thing which has little spiderweb tendrils, rather than a single chip in one place that can be avoided.
So this time around, I installed the Android app. I loaded money on the card (of course you can't specify the exact amount, but you select a dropdown, and the $10 or $15 or $25 or $40 is never an exact multiple of the cost of a load.)
And the mobile app demands a lot of permissions. It wants camera access, and Nearby Devices, and Location, and probably Precise Location too. And then you need to enable Bluetooth, and you also need to be standing right inside the laundry room in order for the app to go anywhere (yes, you can't even check your account profile, or balance, or add money, unless you're inside the laundry room, so fuck me if I wanted to set this up in the comfort of "my" home before going down there in public.)
And the app relies on a shitty QR code scan anyway. I mean, you can tap the NFC stored-value card, but your phone won't tap-to-pay the fuckin' washing machines. And they don't take credit cards, or coins or bills. And the soda machines here don't take credit cards, or bills either, only coins. LOL!
And the app has a fucked-up self-image. It lists 16 washing machines. There are 6 in the room. So there are 10 "phantom machines". I informed the Support dudes like in Marh 2024, when they first installed everything. I told them the app was a dumbass and listed too many machines. I showed them how I was standing in the correct room and the other two rooms had likewise fucked "phantom machines" too, but I didn't care about them. We went around in circles with Support asking for "more information" and I cc:ed the landlady, and she was rather bemused, but more-or-less a bystander on the whole issue.
I was sort of indignant on behalf of the other residents who may be confused. I wasn't personally too confused, but imagine if Grandma installed her iPhone app or something and tried to start Machine #13.
And it's been 13 months and they still haven't rectified the list of machines.
The old service provider, they used to provide a public website; you could see each machine and whether it was active or not, in a little widget, it was very Web 1.0 but with animation. It didn't use Flash or anything fancy. There was no authentication to see these laundry machines running. I suppose that was too vulnerable, and so they locked it up in the app. And of course the app requires you to be in the fucking location rather than checking from the comfort of your home.
So I used to be able to see availability before I took everything down and went into the laundry room and bugged the other resident ladies. But now I can't see availability until I barge into the fucking room itself. Fuck you app makers. I have a login. Let me see whether I can start my wash or if I can wait in the comfort of my home. Now I need to make a special trip just to check on things, or to add funds or even just to check my balance.
deepsun
At least a requirement to let customers know in big letters that the device/appliance you're going to buy would not function without App + Wifi + Internet plan + GPS, and that you're not buying an appliance but a limited license to use it.
willtemperley
Unfortunately, governments are highly incentivised to allow mandatory on-device spyware to feed your location into the global information market.
Why run a sophisticated surveillance and information retrieval system when a you can just ask big-tech for the data for free, or buy from the market at a fraction of the running cost of a dedicated system?
Personally I think the best way to combat this is for concerned people to build businesses with privacy as a feature. Dumb TVs, dumb washing machines etc.
SCdF
Out of interest did you know this before buying it? I'm interested in how they would advertise that kind of feature. I feel like that needs to be a regulated warning label on the box.
Teever
This is the kind of stuff that I feel a coordinated campaign to have consumers take companies to small claims court over would be very effective in combating.
I'm sure a bunch of elderly magistrates would feel that this kind of requirement is obscene and would readily side with the claimant.
Collectively this would cost the company a lot.
pyfon
There are laws. Get a refund. Tell them why. If we all do this it won't be profitable.
matsemann
The action cam market is a bit weird at the moment. The others have caught up to GoPro, and some say even surpassed. But the field is very messy, you can't trust half the stuff.
Dji and Insta360 are very good at giving away free stuff to influencers, and to tech reviewers with strings attached (like forbidding side-by-side comparisons). Sock-puppets constantly recommending these brands, etc.
As a consumer it's very hard to make an informed decision on what to buy. Can't trust anything you read about the models.
fxtentacle
To me, it increasingly seems like the US lacks cultural autonomy.
US companies are A-OK with censoring movies and games to gain access to the Chinese market, for example remember when Blizzard banned a US player in an US tournament to please Chinese censors? But in the other direction, it seems Chinese companies aren't willing to "return the favor" and modify their products to account for American sensibilities when they export to the US. Perpetual surveillance and only little property rights protection is how everyday life in China works, so Chinese consumers won't be bothered by this. It only bothers US consumers, who are used to more privacy and solid property rights.
mcintyre1994
Isn’t the solution to this to just regulate for American sensibilities in the US market? I don’t think it’s true that US companies respect privacy, but if it is then you can regulate for that and the Chinese companies will have to do the same in the US market. They’re not going to “return the favour” if it’s not regulated for and their products do fine in the market without.
stavros
> It only bothers US consumers, who are used to more privacy and solid property rights.
Which US are you talking about? The one I know is a capitalist free-for-all, where the word "regulation" is anathema. The vast majority of Us-based products and services spy on the consumer to make an extra penny, and nobody cares.
It really baffles me to hear someone say that the US isn't under perpetual surveillance, when the NSA literally piped all phonecalls to their servers twenty years ago, before they realized they can just make companies give them all the data.
madduci
Guess what? Canon has now switched its "Camera Connect" app to a cloud based version, where you need an account first to access to the camera pictures that are available only over WiFi Direct.
Ferret7446
Shittiness aside, there's no such thing as a license for a physical product. Licenses are for things that are copyrighted, like movies or software.
A company can't force you to use a physical product in a certain way; a "license" won't hold up in court.
indrora
Tell that to Haas, one of the only US based CnC machine manufacturers.
They instruct technicians to disable features for hardware if you haven’t paid the licensing fee for that hardware. Swapped the 10 head tool changer for a 14 head from a downed machine? Sucks to be you buddy it won’t work because you haven’t licensed the feature to have 14 tools! Oh you bought the machine used? And they swapped it for you? Sucks to be you pay up or it’s scrap metal to you.
3abiton
What argument would hold in US court though? Camera is not working without an app be valid?
fuzzbazz
> won't hold up in court
Does that even matter? because at 4:50 on the video you can clearly read:
"You agree to give up your right to go to court to assert or defend your rights under these Terms"
mrandish
Well then it seems only fair that I pay for the camera license with a license to use my money.
mjevans
Not watching a video, but how is it legal for any company to "sell" something like this? (The video might explain that, but that's my focus of what I care about out of the situation.)
dsign
It's about false advertising: they say "our product gets images like this and that", which is Okay and something the buyer uses to base their decision. And there is an expectation that their product will do as advertised. But they never say front-and-center "our product won't function without a valid Internet connection and an approved photo ID, because we use our product to harvest your data."
sneak
You’re free to not buy it, that’s why. This video is the market working as intended.
serial_dev
It’s also not allowed to sell a coffee machine that electrocutes its users every time it’s turned on, then burns down the house for good measure.
Sure, someone will make a video “this coffee machine killed my wife and burned down my house with my children in it”, and you would say it’s the market working as intended…
There are standards the stuff sold need to meet, even if ultimately you are always “free to not buy it”.
barnabee
Markets are tools.
They are good at some things (allocating resources, adapting to changing supply and demand, revealing preferences and discovering prices, incentivising innovation and socially useful risk taking, …)
and bad at others (ensuring new entrants don’t repeatedly make the same safety mistakes, preventing exploitation of customers, protecting IP, solving for long term social needs, maintaining national resilience against threats, preventing waste…)
Fetishisation of markets is the issue.
Though markets and generally free trade are incredibly important and have brought (and hopefully will continue to bring) great benefits to humanity, they also have downsides, and other tools (regulation, taxation, industrial strategy, …) are needed to balance these.
This is one such case. The market is creating downsides that society should not tolerate.
yoyohello13
The problem with letting “the market” decide things like this is it requires first that someone gets hurt. Then they need to wage and information campaign against said company. Or we can just have a law that says this is bad and be done with it.
sneak
Unchecked lawmaking hurts a lot more people than bad consumer products.
We have a good system, and this video shows it functions well.
hansvm
We have laws about false advertising and such things. At a minimum, there's a case to be made with respect to the warranty of merchantability.
Animats
Where is the part where he doesn't click "Agree", boxes the thing up, and sends it back?
I've sent stuff back for that sort of thing. Often, I'll look at a EULA and decide I don't want it. Mandatory arbitration with anybody other than the American Arbitration Association is a killer.
thayne
1. Most people don't actually read long EULAs. And who can blame them? We have been trained not to read them, and if you do, you are spending a significant amount of your life on a tedious and frustrating endeavor.
2. If you do read it, it is a long document in difficult and intentionally misleading legalese, where you can easily miss something.
3. If you don't agree to the terms, and return it, does the company pay for the shipping? Even if they do, you have now wasted a fair amount of time on this product you won't actually use.
4. Depending on the product there may not be anything on the market that has an acceptable EULA. In part due to the fact that few enough people read the EULA that companies can afford to lose business from the people who do.
GianFabien
And the list of companies whose products I won't buy grows. I just hope the next hammer I buy doesn't come with a head that turns to funny putty when it loses internet connection.
pyfon
They thought they sold me a camera but no I'll invoke my statutory rights and get a full refund.
radicality
Was just browsing earlier today for some potential upgrades from my GoPro10 and was looking at these too, that’s disappointing, guess wont be looking at these.
It should be forbidden for all device manufacturers to make apps, tracking, registering, etc. mandatory.
Every TV, phone, camera, tablet, fridge, ... is becoming a spying device like in the worst scifi dystopias. And as soon as the company stops supporting them they become trash to pollute the planet so they can sell you the next one.
Regulations should have come a decade a go. We own nothing, we have no privacy, we are sold products 24/7. I will vote for a goverment that protects me of this total corporate surveillance. It is their duty towards citizens to do so.
And it will happen, like feudalism died this techno-feudalism will die too.