You have probably heard about what are styled right to repair laws – or efforts to get such laws passed. They are a response to the encoding of cars; more finely, to the denial of access to the coding that runs the computer-controlled modern car. Not just the engine but everything, down to the power windows (which are controlled by mini-computers called body control modules). Your name may be on the title and you’re the one who paid for the vehicle – but ownership is effectively claimed by the vehicle’s manufacturer, who claims perpetual ownership over the code (the software) that runs the vehicle and its systems.
It is the Bill Gates model applied to vehicles.
