Right to own

The right to own (also right of ownership) is the expectation of the buyer of a product to be its owner in a general sense. This concept is a response to various actions by product manufacturers that put buyer's ownership into question, such as designing a product to act against buyer's interests or actively interfering in product maintenance or modification by the buyer, who generally presumes to become a full legal owner of the product, to whom such actions should not be restricted. Such cases are examples of a process commonly recognized as erosion of ownership.^[1][2][3]

The extent of ownership is in dispute between manufacturers and buyers, where both sides seek to define it in their favor. This dispute emerged after technological advancements which have made products more complex and, in some cases, capable of being operated or altered remotely.

Defense against changes made forcibly by the manufacturer was previously provided by laws that establish physical security for a person and their property. Now that physical proximity is no longer required and changes can be made remotely, manufacturers have started to abuse the newly found freedom to unilaterally make changes to products beyond consumers' expectations, sometimes for the better, but sometimes also for the worse.^{[citation needed]}

Meanwhile, an increase in product complexity has made it difficult for users to fully understand the extent of control product manufacturer keeps after the purchase — manufacturers abuse this difficulty to coerce buyers into accepting the terms of purchase they do not fully understand and would presumably refuse if they did.^{[citation needed]}

Product issues commonly associated with erosion of ownership can be roughly categorized into the following groups:

Product designs that incorporate some form of remote access to a product for the manufacturer. This is especially prevalent in products that are designed to connect to the internet.

Manufacturers can build products to have not just remote access to user-facing product features, which they can provide to the user as a feature by itself (e. g. though mobile apps), but possibly with additional functions only available to the manufacturer, not the user. This connection allows the manufacturer to remotely reconfigure a device in a way that is detrimental to its owner, e. g. to detect a part replacement the manufacturer did not authorize, to lock previously free function of a device under a new subscription or even brick the device entirely when it's discontinued.

Centralized remote access infrastructure is also an attractive target for bad actors that seek to take control of many devices at once, one instance of security oversight on part of the manufacturer can potentially compromise entire product lines.

Main article: Right to repair

Prolonged functioning of products often requires maintenance, such as replacement of wear parts and repair. Some manufacturers impose artificial constraints on maintenance of their products in a way that either keeps them involved in the maintenance process after the purchase or discourages maintenance entirely in order to reduce devices' lifespans and boost sales.

Common techniques for this include deliberate use of non-standard parts, difficult procedure for wear part replacement, use of disposable parts (that are difficult to detach without breaking them), exclusivity agreements with parts manufacturers, restricted access to product schematics, part serialization and excessively restricted sale of spare parts (e. g. repair programs with excessive requirements, prohibitively high prices).

Products can be designed to protect the interests of parties other than the owner, most commonly the manufacturer and their business partners. The most common example of this is digital rights management, which denies certain capabilities of a device to its owner under certain manufacturer-controlled circumstances, e. g. during playback of DRM-protected content.

Other examples include denying installation of software chosen by the owner (restrictions on sideloading and installation of aftermarket operating systems), locking the user into using manufacturer's services with no independent alternative and remotely controlling a device in ways its owner would not authorize.

Main article: Security

Products that incorporate poor security measures can be exploited by unauthorized actors. Depending on the extent of access gained by circumventing security measures, consequences of this may range from misuse of product functions to effectively complete loss of ownership though theft.

A prominent example of this is car entry systems, many of which did not use rolling code key systems and can be abused by devices like the Flipper Zero and other commonly available tools for security research.

Situations where a category of products is unavailable for purchase, with their functions only available as a service, despite the product's nature not necessitating it. Manufacturer of a product-as-a-service actively provides the product in this arrangement and may choose to stop doing so unilaterally at any time.

Initially popularized among software products, companies have recently started to offer physical products in this way as well, e. g. electronics leasing.

There is typically no expectation of ownership for products offered in this way, because instead of a purchase it happens through a subscription service. Which starts to become an ownership problem when a large part of a product category transitions to this format due to it being a much more lucrative and financially stable business model compared to selling products. This, however, comes at the expense of consumers — financial benefits of this business model for the manufacturer come straight from consumers' pockets.

Sometimes, however, a product is sold for a one-time cost with a service built-in, conditioning its functioning (in whole or in part) on that service being provided, effectively making the initial purchase a gateway into a future service subscription.

Examples: Adobe, Microsoft, IoT Devices that rely on servers and services outside your home, with or without subscriptions, Games as a service