• operating systems with long-standing security vulnerabilities & no / limited culture of secure-by-design development, OS vendor then sells you an antivirus / security product to “fix” the problem that they allowed to exist in first place (a whole ecosystem of 2° & 3° vendors has sprung up around this)

• cloud platform requires higher-tier licensing to access security products to manage platform security, also charges for log storage necessary to fully utilise those licensed security products / components (again, an ecosystem of 2° & 3° vendors have sprung up to paper over the cracks)

and others have already mentioned “boots theory”^ – low-quality products requiring higher expenditure over time than higher-quality products is well-established in other industries (clothing, vehicles, mechanical spares, sporting goods, etc.)

even in healthcare (in some countries), people who can’t afford regular visits to a doctor or the medications they need to treat an initial medical condition will end up having higher medical costs as their un(der)treated illnesses develop into worse conditions requiring more-intensive, higher-cost interventions over time (which, depending on the country, they’ll either continue to be unable to afford and have miserable, shorter lives, or if they’re “lucky” will be borne by the state)

in for-profit healthcare systems, this is the system operating as intended ( #POSIWID )

one of the economic drivers for states that do provide decent healthcare (in addition to believing that citizens should lead healthy lives) is to ensure that people have good access to early interventions so that the state doesn’t bear the higher costs later on

there’s usually no similar incentive for for-profit companies to produce higher-quality goods & services, as weak regulatory regimes tend to go hand-in-hand with aggressive capitalism



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X-Clacks-Overhead: #GNUTerryPratchett
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