

Freemium Hardware Is Coming - jheitzeb
http://www.hackthings.com/freemium-hardware-is-coming-and-you-cant-stop-it/

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oakwhiz
Potential good side of freemium hardware: Acquiring low-end hardware and
somehow hacking it into a higher-end version. Manufacturers will try to make
cheaper hardware by cramming more functionality onto one SoC, thus slowly
driving down costs for technology in general.

Potential bad side of freemium hardware: More locked down systems, more
undocumented hardware, possible backdoors and more spying (how else are we
going to recover the cost of the hardware?) Devices could emerge that are
"dumber," i.e. they are merely proprietary touchscreen frontends for services
offered in "the cloud." People might like getting "a free tablet" even if it
just does one thing.

