Consumer understanding and/or regulation needs to change in order to provoke a different response from the manufacturers.
Industries that do not self regulate tend to find that they will then be regulated by the authorities.
The phone companies used to be so anal about this that they would ban 'unlicensed' hardware from their networks to the point that you could only use their overpriced hardware. Now that has changed to the point where they will push whatever junk gives them the biggest margins at the moment of sign-up and never mind the long view.
Yet another example of a place where strict software liability would be a great thing to have.
The phone companies used to be so anal about this that they would ban 'unlicensed' hardware from their networks to the point that you could only use their overpriced hardware.
I thought that was more because it was overpriced than out of any attempt to avoid regulation. And that they were blatant enough about being anti-competitive that they got regulated for it.
This to me clearly indicates that the carriers at least have the option to ensure that the equipment connected to their network is up to certain standards. But since they don't car e (they never did) they'll be happy to sell you a phone from some manufacturer that is most likely not going to outlive the contract because of the extra margin they make on that phone.
So either they should take it back for some residual value (which they can then try to recover from the manufacturer) or they should ensure it keeps working properly.
I thought some of the fallout from that mess was that they can't impose rules beyond "doesn't break our shit".
A major recall that affects a large number of cars can create huge expenses in the aggregate. According to Toyota's Q3 conference call, they have set aside 100 billion yen (approximately $1.12 billion) for these "quality-related expenses" which will be allocated between the third and fourth quarters. (Some products were announced with great hype, only to be pulled from shelves. Find out more in A Year In Product Recalls.)[1]
I suspect that legally required recalls are viewed differently than security updated mainly because they are legally required. I wouldn't mind a consumer law requiring companies to provide at least a minimum period of security updates from the time it's officially available from the manufacturer. I also wouldn't mind if that period was longer for "appliance-like" IoT devices...
It probablt can even use the same justification. Unsafe vehicles on the road are a danger to us all, and so are unsafe devices on our networks.
1: http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0210/the-cost-of-...