This is a relatively interesting situation imo. And it's tragically not unique. Another example is the Keurig machines. The latest model has DRM such that you can only use officially licensed Keurig cups. Suffice to say people were displeased. A delightful video showing how to get around it has 670,000 views. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e0yCq1AEeY
So, here's why I think it's interesting. The companies that sell these products likely make the bulk of their profit from the consumables. That makes it economically viable to sell the machine at break even or possibly a loss. Then the money comes from the consumables. This is a pretty attractive business model both to the manufacturer and possibly even the consumer.
The downside, of course, is that competitors can swoop in and make consumables as well. So now you're selling hardware for a loss and other people are selling consumables for razor thin margins and you're screwed.
I don't think there is an obvious answer here. Some of these markets might not be viable if the hardware has to be sold for a profit. So that kinda sucks. But the DRM also treats consumers like shit, so that really sucks.
Is perhaps the issue just that it isn't clearly stated up front? Amazon sells two flavors of Kindle readers. One with ads for less money and one without ads for more ($20). Once upon a time Apple sold DRM mp3s for 99 cents and DRM free mp3s for $1.29. Would you pay an extra $50 for a DRM free kitty litter box? Or an extra $100 (33%) on a fancy coffee maker?
Here's my take away. Some products are subsidized by consumables. DRM enables that subsidy. Without DRM that product may not be viable. DRM can be minimally negative (Steam) but can also be maximum hostile (Keurig). Finding the balance is tough and we should talk more about it.
Then offer me a +33%, DRM-free Keurig and let me decide what to buy. I would have much less aversion to the company if the choice existed. Except things are not that easy, for them to make up what they would lose in branded refills, they'd have to jack up the price not by 33%, but by >= 1000%. If they did this, you could extrapolate how long a tail they expect from each sold unit.
The problem is, it's not simply selling the machine at a good profit; they are not selling you a machine, they are inexpensively buying your ability to choose...and that is worth a whole lot of money.
This seems somewhat analogous to the cell phone market here in the US.
Customers have a choice to either buy their phone upfront and then choose from any number of much cheaper "consumables" (prepaid mobile plans) or to get a huge discount on the device in exchange for vendor-lock in and a higher cost in the long term.
Consumers, here in the US at least, widely prefer the latter either out of preference for lower upfront cost or because they are unaware of long-term savings.
It may also be analogous in that the game is rigged.
Off-brand K-cups seem to sell for around $1.50-$1.70 each in a quick search. Official K-cups seem to sell for around $1.50-$1.80 each. Obviously there may be a non-price advantage to buying off-brand cups, but it's clear that they know who they are competing against. A 5lb bag of coffee from somewhere fancy is also between $1.60-$1.70 per cup. Coincidence?
Likewise, my post-paid phone bill is $60/mo and I buy a phone every so often for $199 subsidized. $1670 over the course of the two year contract. If I switch to a pre-paid plan, it's still $60/mo (for less) and the phone is now $599, for a total of $2040. Other carriers are in the same range ($50-80), most offer substantially less for that money, and basically everyone operates right around in the same price region +/- a few hundred dollars over two years.
It may be that they're all running their businesses perfectly optimized and this is what it costs to provide cell phone service and make a profit. I'm more inclined to think that this is the cost that the market will bear, and the minor variations that exist in service prices simply serve to keep a minority of the customers churning through the market in search of a better deal that doesn't exist in any significant sense.
I'm using Freedompop, which is a Sprint MVNO, besides the upfront costs being pretty on par with aftermarket devices sales (I have their Galaxy S4, cost $350) their monthly rates go from free, which I'm currently on, to $20 a month for unlimited talk / text / 3g data, which my mother uses. In any case that beats major carriers in a matter of months.
The same could be said of a lot of the Sprint MVNOs - Ting and Republic Wireless are also hyper aggressive price wise and always come out ahead of the major carriers in a matter of months (except T-Mobile, especially if you need a lot of data).
It doesn't include much talk time, but T-Mobile has a $30 prepaid plan that's definitely a better deal for data-heavy users than their (or anybody else's) postpaid plans. My Nexus 5 cost me $350 and was competitive with other flagship phones available at the time.
Over 2 years, I pay $1070, assuming I buy a new $350 phone every 2 years. I might stretch the Nexus 5 to 3 years. If a specific phone that costs $600 is important to you, you'd pay $1320. The plan is light on airtime: 100 minutes with additional time for 9 cents per minute, but Google Hangouts can dial US phone numbers free of charge now.
So you can save a lot if you skip the subsitdy and fit a specific usage pattern.
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-monthly-plans "$30 per month — Unlimited web and text with 100 minutes talk... First 5GB at up to 4G speeds... This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com".
That sounds good, except that I recently tried to activate a new, unlocked iPhone on t-mobile.com — and it didn't go well at all. The web site simply couldn't do it. Neither could the phone reps. It took a trip to a B&M store before I could get the phone activated, even though it came from Apple with a t-mobile SIM card already installed. So this $30 plan may not be a practical option if you want a specific phone.
That said I am pretty happy with t-mobile so far, using a post-paid plan. Connectivity has been better than I expected. International roaming was an amazing value on my last trip, but that might not be available on the $30 plan either.
The $30 plan is an odd duck. They clearly don't want it to be too visible. I guess it's an attempt at market segmentation. People who aren't willing to go out of their way to track it down will go for a more expensive plan instead. But I think it's available to anything that'll take a SIM card if you can jump through all the hoops and twist the right arms.
It's not difficult to get in my experience using it myself and recommending it to two international visitors. They just don't market it, so people only learn about it through word of mouth.
I helped a friend activate the $30 plan on an iPhone. There were no issues aside from the activation website having display issues on mobile browsers that made filling out the forms impossible. Odd that a mobile provider wouldn't put more effort in to that.
It may be that the preinstalled SIM only works with postpaid plans, as they do seem to separate the two business models quite a bit (separate websites and such). International data roaming is not available on the prepaid plans, but swapping in a local SIM can be a good option for some use cases.
It's true, if you make certain compromises, you can save some money.
In this case, $350 over 2 years isn't worth it to me, it would have to be some serious dough to get me to watch my minutes like a hawk. It is 2014 after all, and I have no desire to return to the days of paying for things per minute.
I feel like it's less that it costs T-Mo $30 to handle that amount of voice / data usage than that they have determined the market can bear $30 for cell phone service so that's what the price is. Which is what they should be doing to maximize their profit, but I think that's the source of why there is so little differentiation between carriers -- if there was real competition, we would be paying a lot less.
And that's the problem right there. Americans thinking they are actually getting a "huge discount" or subsidy. You are not. You're only paying the phone in monthly payments. That's it. If anything they get more money from you buying it with this "discount" than they would if you would buy it upfront. At least I think that was the case before. Now T-mobile forced all to adopt a transparent monthly payment plan for all phones, so you can easily do the math yourself to see if buying it through monthly rates is more expensive or not than paying full price upfront.
Anyway, bottom line is you're not getting a discount or subsidy.
It depends on the carrier and the plans they offer. This is changing, but a few years ago the situation was that you could get a $400 discount on your smartphone in exchange for a two-year contract for (say) $70/month service, or you could pay full price up front for your smartphone and get a month-to-month contract for $70/month. The cost of service didn't change, all that changed was lock-in. That was a subsidy. If you were willing to be locked in for two years, you'd pay $400 less for the phone+service combination.
Now, most carriers charge you more if you buy a "subsidized" phone, so it's a clear choice between paying more up front or paying more over time.
It's tough to amortize a large cost if you don't have any savings to begin with. Some people may recognize that the up-front cost with the lower monthly rate is the best deal, but be flat out unable to pay it.
Arguments that they should wait and save for the next 3 years are silly, because in those 3 years they're losing out on any opportunities enabled by having the device at the higher monthly cost. It's only an irrational decision because those opportunities frequently don't have any monetary value.
Wait, how do I get my provider to give me a discount in return for paying full price for the phone? I was never given that option to begin with, though I'd much prefer to the savings.
I buy my phone outright and then use a different carrier. I have used H2O but recently switched to Cricket. My wife and I each have $50/month plans that include 3 GB of data and unlimited text/calls.
They give you a $5 discount for having a second line and a $5 discount on each for having a credit card on file to auto charge.
Net is $85/month for two. And it's the same network as AT&T (in fact, they are owned by AT&T).
you don't. you just use a different carrier. net10 for me is about 50% of the standard at&t price I was paying and works 95% identically (no visual voicemail is the only difference I've seen in the last year - it's not worth $600/year to me).
> they are not selling you a machine, they are inexpensively buying your ability to choose
Very well put. Edit: And since most people are paralyzed by the sunk cost fallacy this works even better than plain cost analysis would predict, especially if they are deceived about the presence of DRM.
DRM attempts (in a better or worse implementation) to enforce a consumables-subsidized business model. And it's not just cat poop machines or coffee makers - it's the same "trick" as network locked subsidized phones.
Just because that's the only business model you thought of, it doesn't make it "right", or even make it something that shouldn't be perfectly legal to circumvent. If you claim to "sell" a coffee maker or cat poop machine, a reasonable person doesn't expect to be tying themselves to your company's future revenue stream. If you angrily discover this _after_ someone's taken your money without having made that clear beforehand - you should have every moral and legal right to _not_ participate in the DRM enforced consumables purchases, and still your the goods you "bought".
Car dealers and real estate developers don't think "Hey, no-one would buy our product if it was $x thousand dollars, therefore it's an uneconomically viable market!". They arrange partnerships with finance companies to ensure you can drive away with only $x hundred dollars down, and a contract (usually with someone else) to pay $y per month until it (and the interest) is paid off.
If you can't sell your cat poop machine (or coffee maker) for a price that covers the cost (and your required margin) because the up front costs sound too high - perhaps getting into or partnering with a business who specializes in providing credit and offering it for "$Z up front, and $Z/10 monthly payments for a year!" - instead of pissing off customers and creating a market opportunity for 3rd party electronics to drive your hardware?
(Of course, I'm probably completely wrong about consumer buying habits here. Most people still talk about the "free phone" they get when they sign up for a 2 year $80/month cell phone plan, and think they're getting a great deal... If you're happy enough to mislead your customers and deal with the blowback like this blog post, I suspect you'll make more money that I do...)
I'm still undecided but I'm leaning towards the only issue here being that the DRM isn't up front. If people know what they are getting into then I see no reason why such a deal between two private parties should be prevented. Tricking someone into a deal and then jumping out "gotcha!" is of course shitty behavior.
I'm sympathetic towards the cell phone issue but I think it's being brought up far too often here. In the United States you have three, maybe four, choices. It's easy for them to collude and price fix. The fuckers certainly did when charging $20 a month for text messages. It costs billions of dollars to enter that market so they could this easily. Pretty much anyone can enter the kitty litter box or coffee maker marketplace. Dozens of companies already have. I'm all about consumer choice and as long as there is choice if someone wants to offer a shitty deal then I'm perfectly fine with that.
In the DRM model, car dealers would sell cars for a very low charge, then sell DRM'd petrol. That would be way funny, with all its inconveniencies.
Should we make it mandatory to display the DRM situation on the box before the purchase? I assume it's already done, in the form of "Recharge with our verified capsules for the highest standard of hygiene" in case of the cat litter box. It's not easy to inform consumers upfront in a meaningful way.
Car manufacturers are moving in this direction. Not with DRM fuel, but with the specialized maintenance machines required to read/reset the diagnostic codes on your car's onboard computer.
I think the bigger issue is not just the lack of choice "right now", but the continued dependence on a manufacturer's support of the product. What happens when they come up with a newer model and decide that they're going to stop making the product for the older one? Or if they happen to go out of business? Your perfectly working machine becomes completely useless overnight. Even if there are still people willing to make the product for it. Or if you could somehow make it yourself. Nope, screw you, throw out your perfectly fine machine and go get the new one. It feels wrong because these barriers are completely artificial.
I think the failure to be clear on the limitations up-front is central. If everyone knows what they're getting into, then you can just let the market figure things out. The problem is that people have expectations for consumables, namely that the difference between a name brand consumable and a generic version is at most quality, and these companies are taking advantage of that expectation.
You don't even have to sell two flavors. Let Keurig do their silly DRM stuff. Just make sure it's absolutely clear on the packaging that you have no choice in who you buy the consumables from. If people prefer to pay more to avoid DRM, a competitor will surely arise if Keurig doesn't go for that market themselves.
Ultimately, these companies need to be reminded that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. The model where you sell up-front cheaply and then make it up on consumables doesn't require DRM. All it needs is brand loyalty, preferably backed by a reputation for quality. For a real-world example, car dealerships make most of their money on service, not sales, even though everyone is free to take their car to any unaffiliated mechanic they like.
I feel a little dirty defending non-readers, but I don't think that's sufficiently clear or prominent. In the context of a product description, it's ambiguous as to whether that's simply a recommendation or a hard statement of fact. For example, in the world of cars it's common to see the phrase, "Always use genuine $BRAND parts." Of course, other parts work fine, it's just a recommendation. The Keurig statement is a bit stronger, but still not clear.
I'd want something more like, "This device uses technological measures to prevent compatibility with third-party packs." And a bit more front and center.
Yes, it is subsidized by the consumables. But for the consumer, there doesn't seem to be any benefit---one way or another the hardware will get payed for, so in expectation you pay as much either way. (Perhaps you could argue that it benefits the consumer by offering a kind of insurance against not finding the product useful, but mostly I think it just prays on some imperfection in human psychology).
Given that this kind of business scheme naturally leads to DRM, I would like to see it banned. Pass a law saying that litter boxes must accept third-party litter. (And phones must be portable between different contracts, and cellphones and Xboxes must be able to run arbitrary software). Then the companies would have to charge the full price up front, and there would be no reason for them to add DRM.
Passing a law seems wildly unnecessary. The market is handling it just fine. People are pissed and buying competitors products instead. There is no shortage of competition.
I think you're crazy on mandating Xbox hardware to run arbitrary software. If you want to do that then just build a PC. Which is something you can do this instant. Demanding fewer options for consumers rather than more requires a spectacular argument which I don't think can be made here.
And passing laws about "kitty litter" just because today's ranting blog post is about kitty litter is a _spectacularly_ bad idea.
The law shouldn't be about specific individual products, but about consumer rights and vendor obligations.
I'd be happy to discuss a law requiring vendors to disclose at point-of-sale any measure taken in a product's design that artificially limits replacing consumables with 3rd party alternatives. Cat litter machines, ink jet printers, coffee makers, razors, cell phones, soda streams - if there's a reasonable assumption that you could buy kitty litter, ink, coffee beans, blades, airtime, or carbon dioxide gas - and _not_ have to buy those from one specific company who sell it at significantly above market rates, vendors should be required to clearly disclose that before the sale takes place.
Laws should solve _classes_ of problems, not instances.
I think a better law would be requiring labeling saying that it is DRM protected and you can only use consumables from the manufacturer. It shouldn't cause any additional cost to the manufacturers. The only harm would be the lost sales from people who don't buy it because it has DRM, which is a good thing in my opinion. It's sort of like how the law that places have to list the calories on menus now, which is a good thing.
Steam is incredibly intrusive as soon as you actually want to own your games. For example, Rage runs perfectly on Linux through Wine because the engine is OpenGL. Too bad you cannot actually download it on the Linux steam client because its not platform native and supported in client. And because the game has the Steam DRM, you could not run it on Linux anyway without running it through Steam in Wine.
So Rage has a festering tumor of the Windows Steam attached to it for no reason but to force down my throat how I don't actually own this game.
Same applies to every game on Steam that runs fine in Wine but that you cannot download, and often cannot run, without running Steam through Wine as well.
Some products are subsidized by consumables. DRM enables that subsidy. Without DRM that product may not be viable.
I think there is a useful distinction to be made between Xbox DRM and Keurig DRM. The key difference is that people know what their in for with an Xbox - they know that they will be buying a few very expensive games a year for a few years. They may even know that this "subsidizes" the machine itself. But there's no other experience to have with the Xbox.
With Keurig (or cat boxes or ink cartridges), the situation is different because it's a refill problem that ordinary consumers can address themselves, and often want to. There is no equivalent experience with Xbox! (Well, you might argue that "programming a new game" is something like it, but it's still not "refilling" an existing game ( although that does give me an interesting idea for those systems that you could buy a "refillable" SD card that you can load with whatever code you want...)
Nestle, who have been selling the same kind of device very successfully in Europe, last year had a patent for their pods revoked across Europe[0]. Their main defence against third-party pods was suing for IP infringement apparently. Those coffee machines are super convenient so it's nice that we're starting to see a variety of coffees available for them. If nothing else because who wants to drink one brand of coffee all their life?
They recently released the technical specifications for the pods too. Hopefully the other manufacturers will decide or be forced to follow suit.
I was under the impression Keurig made that move after the patent on the cups expired. I use an Eko Brew refillable k-cup replacement and will not be buying the 2.0 should this old one fail. I never thought they sold the coffee makers at a loss, I do remember rumors of a seven cent fee per k-cup.
I do not mind DRM on items I am renting and am expected to return, however if I make a purchase where there is no understanding it is to be returned for refund of deposit or the like it should not have DRM.
AACs, actually. (MPEG's superior successor to the obsolete MP3 format.) It fixes some artifacting issues and produces higher quality audio at lower bitrates.
"Every once in a while, when the scoop misses a giant cat poop the drying cycle cooks it. It gets dried out like a little raunchy piece of beef jerky. It ends up stinking the apartment up worse than one could imagine. It’s rare, happening maybe once every week or two"
Thanks for striking this off my list of "things I think might be useful." I don't need the odor of fresh-baked cat poop wafting through my house. I'll stick with the freshly-poop cat poop smell that concentrates itself fairly well to the room the litterbox is in.
I wouldn't write it off that quickly. This thing is life changing. As in it's one of those devices like Tivo you get and then realize you will never live like a heathen ever again.
The baked-poo stuff happens occasionally. If your cat has solid/large... waste products, it will almost never be a problem. The problem is when you get "rabbit pellet" style poo, and it slips between the cracks of the scooper. There is also a small dead zone in the center sometimes - but you can usually resolve this by removing/adding pellets.
I have a couple friends who have been using it for years, and I finally "upgraded" 3-4 months ago. Even if you have to replace it every 2 years, it's still a great deal.
The DRM in it is indeed bullshit, but for one cat the cost is low enough to not making hacking it worth my time. Perhaps if I get really bored one day.
I'm with you. I had a friend that had cats. His home smelled. I had to get all the hair off myself when I went home. And the cats didn't seem to like the owners.
I know there are lots of cat lovers out there but I confess I just don't get it. Thankfully it's a completely voluntary thing - the owning of cats.
I used to have dogs, I love dogs, but I moved to a small apartment and I didn't want to get a dog.
My girlfriend likes cats, so we picked up a stray from a local shelter. And she is a lot more affectionate than I had been led to believe cats were.
Hair IS a big problem though. Smell is much less of a problem than a small dog in an apartment (I might be biased, but I haven't had anybody tell me anything about smell. I should double-check with people I trust though).
The main reason I've been holding off getting a dog or a cat (current preference is cat, but that has and could change again), is that I'd have to clean, handle and take care of disposing their faeces[0].
It's not that I'm grossed out by the idea--not at all, I'm not very squicky when it comes to this matter. But it's the principle of it. It's probably also a rather silly idea, so bear with me for a bit :)
The idea is most illustrative with dogs, I'll argue it can be extended to cats later. When you have a dog, you're supposed to be its boss, right? This is healthy for the dog because it's a pack animal (unlike a cat), it'll behave better and feel more comfortable if it has a stable place in the social hierarchy, etc. But humans, primates are social animals too. And as it so happens, one common way of signalling social pecking order among primates is flinging poop at each other.
Now of course modern humans don't (usually) do this any more.
And I'm sure I'm over-thinking this. Which is what modern humans (can) do, unlike other primates (I think).
But the brain circuitry for this social pecking order pack hierarchy behaviour are still there. And I have an idea of this sad and confused primate ghost functioning somewhere in the back of my primitive brain circuits, wondering why it's handling the poop of another pack member that is clearly so very much of lower status than itself.
And that is why this idea (silly as it may be) would also extend to cats, even if they are not pack animals, the human cleaning their poop still is. Maybe even more strongly so, as dogs clearly display their relative social status to their bosses in a variety of other ways, while cats are usually lovingly described by their owners as having their very individualistic, charmingly alien, ideas on the matter of status.
So I don't know anything about pets or cats or dogs. I expect you to tell me this :) And I suppose my opinion on these matters will change quite a bit if/when I ever adopt one.
Still, having a robot (or robot toilet) take care of my cat's droppings would pretty much solve the whole débâcle. And yeah I can imagine how it could be "life-changing" in a similar manner as getting a dishwasher machine would be (given one does a lot of home cooking). I do wonder what a similar robot for dogs would look like, though. Because if it would walk your dog for you that's taking away part of the bonding and fun of having a dog in the first place. So maybe you'd just have to walk both your dog and POOPBOT 9000 at the same time, or something. The three of us could even play fetch together, maybe.
[0] I'm sure there are similar rules in the US but to be clear, in the Netherlands you are required by law to scoop your dogs droppings as you walk it outside. As a non dog-owner, and judging what the few exempt areas[1] look like, I'm quite happy with this rule.
[1] Quick bit of side-info about spatial planning in the Netherlands, contrasting with (say) the US or Germany: There exists no empty space in the Netherlands. None. Not between roads, plots of land, fields/plains/forests/nature, industry sites, anywhere. It's all accounted for, zoned and planned down to the square metre. Land is very expensive, and even the trimmings are zoned as "rest space" so they can be tracked.
This and the other things I mentioned in my response to that article ( https://medium.com/@deinspanjer/the-catgenie-doesnt-eliminat... ) could certainly turn some people off of the idea of using the machine entirely. That said, it all depends on your situation and how much you enjoy having cats and how much you hate regularly cleaning out the liter tray.
For what it's worth, I think it depends mostly on your cats and the quality of cat food you're feeding them. I've had the baked poop happen only twice in about eight months. However, without knowing upfront how your cat's poop and the machine will get along, it's totally reasonable to not want to find out.
I feel like the litterbox of the future baking a shit lasagna once every two weeks is a pretty damned high failure rate. Aside from the obvious gross-out factor (I also assume you have to clean it manually after this happens?) I'd be worried that today it's the cat's poop, but tomorrow it'll cook the cat.
If your pet eats something it shouldn't the absolute last thing you want is "manual intervention". Have you ever seen how potters cut lumps of doughy clay? They do it with wire. If you pull you can do the same to your pets intestines.
We've been hearing about computer tech coming to everything, even our coffee pots for so many years now. Who knew when it did, it'd be DRM. Keurig thought that was the way to better coffee, apparently. This has become idiotic. There appears to be someone at every corp that thinks this is a good idea and presses it. No downside, and huge potential upside. Until there is a negative, it will proliferate.
There's a very simple solution to this, at the moment.
First of all, do your research on a product before you buy it, typically a quick google search will tell you whether or not there are any glaring problems with whatever it is you're considering.
Second, if you find that something you purchased contains harmful DRM, return it to the retailer if it is within the returns window. If it is not, post it on Craigslist or equivalent explaining why you're getting rid of it, you'll find a buyer without losing much money.
Thirdly, contact the company that made the product and inform them that you just returned or resold the product because it contains DRM that in your opinion is harmful to you the consumer, and that you will be avoiding any future products that include DRM, and that you will be sharing your BRAND_GOES_HERE experience with your friends and family.
The more we push back against this, the harder it is for that big-wig at FooCorp to deny that DRM has downsides. This will only work in the early stages while there are alternatives though, so push back now.
You're right, that's what people need to do. The problem? That's not what most people are going go do.
Why?
They will walk in to Walmart and see PooperScooperA for $100 and PooperScooperB for $200, will see the items have similar specs and buy A. Why they won't realize is A has DRM that only uses special expensive A packets. The packaging for A is going to hide this fact as much as possible.
And you are right, it leaves that advertising to us to bitch, post, and yell about DRM wherever we can. Many people will complain about how tired they are about said posts. Some forums will even be paid off by manufactures to block such posts.
You're right, that is a problem for people who haven't been bitten by DRM yet, but I find that it typically only happens once, at least to people who care about that kind of thing.
This is how I see it going:
Person buys slightly cheaper cat box. Person runs out of SpecialCleaningSolutionX that comes with the product. Person goes to buy more, but is taken aback by the high price of the cleaning solution. Person looks for noname brand cleaning solution and either doesn't find it, or does find it but finds out it doesn't work. Person then takes to social media to rant about their horrible experience with CompanyY and about how SpecialCleaningSolutionX costs far more than the price difference between that more expensive product was. Person's friends and family learn the lesson that Person did, but through osmsis. CompanyY wonders why sales for their product begin to drop off as word spreads.
It's unfortunate that a lot of people have to buy it to find out how horrible it is, but the alternative is researching the product before buying it and there's nothing preventing them from doing that, it's just truly unfortunate that it's come to this.
People fully immersed in our industry are still coming to terms with open source/open access. It's easy to forget the sectors outside ours still have to walk the same irritating horrible path
I do my cat litter manually, but the author seems to have overlooked the Litter Robot: http://www.litter-robot.com/ My friend has one and it works very well (for years now). It just uses off the shelf cat litter. The mechanism is 'brute force' rather than optimized, but it works: after the machine senses the cat has stepped out by the change in weight, it slowly rotates the entire cat chamber, causing any deposits to be covered by falling litter even if the cat hasn't buried them by choice, before hitting the mechanical filter that diverts any solids into a disposal drawer. It's purely mechanical, so the odor control/dust level is as good as your choice of litter product. Downsides are that it's a bit bulky and noisy. but there's no DRM and it's so mechanically simple that there's not much that can go wrong with it - it certainly won't bake the cat poop like the machine described - yuck.
I found mine doesn't take up much more room than the old large litter box + tray. I also have the "roomier" bubble unit. They do offer refurbished models for $60 less.
I've been using the ScoopFree (http://www.petsafe.net/scoopfree) boxes for about six years now with no problems. Before that, I had some other brand that was mostly ok, though not as good. There are obviously plenty of other alternatives the author hasn't considered that don't cook poop and do a great job.
Yeah, our CatGenie used to service two cats, with the second one only occasionally using it as he vastly preferred being an indoor/outdoor cat and doing his business outside. That ended last Christmas day when he tried to race a car across a snowy street to get to the "next door's garden".
That solution might not work out well for everyone.
There does seem to be a US/UK split as to whether cats are indoor or outdoor animals. I would say 90%+ of UK cats are allowed outside. I think the figure is lower in the US.
I trained my cat to do its business in the toilet. I cannot tell you how much better this is than any other solution. There are training kits that our friends and family have now used for their cats.
If you live near the ocean, you won't want to do this if your cat could be a toxoplasmosis carrier (I.e. is outdoors or otherwise could be eating rodents). Apparently toxoplasmosis makes it through water treatment and harms sea mammals.
>I trained my cat to do its business in the toilet.
Male cats frequently have severe problems that can be identified by changes in production of urine. You can't see those changes if the cat is pissing in a loo rather than a litter box.
Older cats become distressed when they are no longer able to use this method.
There are a few other reasons why people might want to think carefully before trying to train a cat to use a loo.
Yes, the problem with all these automated cat poop solutions is losing access to a super important clue about your cat's health. If you scoop every day, you'll notice when suddenly there is more or less pee in the box, or blood in your cat's urine or stool. Cats hide pain. Sometimes the litter box is the only way to catch something like a bladder obstruction before it's too late.
Being able to smell their waste in the litter box is also an important part of a cat's territory marking. Having it all flushed away or covered up in scented cleaning solution is going to raise the chances a cat starts peeing in inappropriate places under stress. Same with the lack of 'sand' to dig in when peeing in a toilet (at least the automated boxes still have a digging substrate). The digging is so instinctual that you don't have to train even feral cats to use a litterbox. As soon as they realize it's the only place in the house they can dig, they'll use it.
Good points. If you notice a bunch of little pee clumps, or you cat is trying to use the box way more than normal, probably want to have a vet take a look. Also, if they suddenly stop using the box and start peeing/pooping somewhere else on a consistent basis, have the vet check that out too. Our cats had bladder infections. They start to associate the litter box with pain, so go somewhere else. They may also be trying to send you a message.
This makes no sense to me. I know how often, and what color my cat's pee is. I do not understand how a homogenous clump of clay would tell me nearly as much. Ditto blood in the stool, which I posit would be much easier to spot floating in clear fluid than caked "almond roca" style in litter.
Whilst being inflicted with toxoplasmosis is a pretty unpleasant thing, the chances of actually being infected are pretty low provided you maintain good litter tray hygiene. Also cats only release the oocysts once in their lifetime around about the time they digest their first kills that are carriers.
There's a lot of FUD about cat poo and toxoplasmosis, especially with regards to pregnant women and children [1].
Also if you're allowing your cat to poop in your toilet I'd say you're at a greater risk of infection because that poop is going to be airborne and quite possibly casting off oocysts into the air.
Finally having cats use human toilets is not natural, cats naturally want to bury their poop, it's normal for them. Not being able to perform this ritual can stress them out. Also you may miss out spotting signs of bowel or urinary diseases/infections which can bring down a cat pretty quickly if not treated promptly.
If you decide to share your house or flat with a cat then you just need to put up with their natural potty habits, or don't it.
Regarding toxoplasmosis, my recommendation was simply in line with what my city waste department has said. They previously said to use flushable kitty litter to avoid bagged waste. Now they say bag it, because of toxo. Good to hear this is even less an issue than I thought.
Not sure I understand how my cat's poo, in water, promptly flushed, is more airborne than litter-deposited poo. If anything, I've had lots of people remark at how crazy it is that our apartment doesn't have any litter box smell at all.
Regarding health, as I wrote elsewhere, I'm fairly certain I'm much more aware of our cat's urine and feces than a litter box user.
I cannot comment on the naturalness of toilet training our cat. Yes, cat's have an instinct to dig, which ours apparently satisfies by batting at the back of the toilet seat. Maybe she's secretly suffering, however she sure seems to make happy, excited sounds for her kitty treat that she gets each time she uses the toilet...
My old housemate had a bad habit of getting stoned and ordering random cheap shit from China on eBay (and forgetting about it until it arrived 3 weeks later). One day he beckoned me into his room, and showed me the training kit he wanted to get for his cat. The cat was the type that keeps meowing at whoever's nearest at high volume until it gets what it wants (which usually ended up being me), not to mention had specifically come into my room and pissed on stuff while I was sleeping, so I was already severely pissed off with this animal.
I told him in no uncertain terms that training the cat to do its business in the toilet was crossing the line. The possibility of having to wait for the fucking cat to take a dump before I could go doubled with the fact I'd have to flush for the dumb fucker would be the final nail in the coffin of my dignity. I would not become the pet.
I can understand the convenience training a cat to do this, but there are some luxuries that should be the privy of humans, and sitting down to take a steamer without having to dig a hole should be one of them.
I did my own construction (not recommended). From the Amazon reviews, I ended up buying my parents a Citikitty training kit. I think a review of their main competitor, Litter Kwitter, said that kit was a bit flimsy and could result in a heavy cat taking a bath.
I suppose there's always a chance that they'll miss during training, but neither I nor my parents had a problem. I had a fried try training three youngish kittens, and they had a couple mishaps, but I suspect that's par for the course.
Our cat will "dig" in clean toilet water, which is a little gross. Fortunately, she won't dip her toes in soiled water. I'd much rather our cat track a little toilet water than soiled litter, as at least that has the benefit of some chlorine. We have a "no mellow" policy in our house.
A recommendation: from day 1 we've rewarded our cat with the "Greenies" dental treats. As a result, she is pretty vocal about getting our attention when the toilet needs flushing, which is about twice a day (one solid, one liquid evacuation). Another benefit that we didn't anticipate, is that the vet always remarks at how clean her teeth are. So, win-win on the Greenies.
I did some marketing consulting for the "inventor" of citikitty (was on Shark Tank as you probably know). I just sent her the link to the article telling her she needs to invent some kind of consumable to her kit to get future residual income. I was half serious half kidding.
Interesting I don't use her product but we do have a cat.
She might like it. Although one potential issue is scaring off people by mentioning "germs". In other words putting an idea that didn't exist in many people's heads that they never thought of. Although also possible it would result in increased business as well.
tangentially related to blog post but very relevant to cat shit – i recently bought a "top opening" cat litter box[1], and its incredible that they are not the norm.
my biggest problem with cat litter is not the shit, but having cat litter be tracked across the bathroom - this is almost entirely solved with a top opening box. additionally, my dog is unable to eat the shit.
I've taught mine to use ordinary flush toilet. Although he doesn't understand flushing and can't push the button (just meows for a human to assist), still needs to do a few scratching paw motions to soothe the nerves, and sometimes (no idea what he thinks, to me it seems like a completely random behavior) "forgets" about flush toilet and wants a litter tray, it's quite awesome. No litter whatsoever, obviously.
I used to have a Clevercat litter box for my cat and she still tracked litter in places - not as much, but still. I replaced it with the Breeze litter box (http://www.tidycats.com/Products/Breeze) and I've been very happy ever since. Might be something to look into, although it doesn't solve the dog problem ;)
Big pellets easier to deal with if flung out of the box + pads (you can use cheaper chux instead) drastically cuts down on the waste/effort and heavy bags of used and new litter, and makes me and my cat happy because there's no litter dust whatsoever to make us sneeze. It's a little loud and smellier, but whatever. One bag of pellets is one month, one pad per week (for my cat) and it's about ~$10-12 from Amazon (in bulk).
There are some interesting workarounds for the box too, like I've heard of people using Feline Pine instead of the pellets and having the sawdust collect in the pad tray.
We use the Clevercat too, not because of smell or whatever but because our cat is such a vigorous digger that with any open litter box he sends litter all across the room.
But otherwise he mostly uses the big litterbox called Nature, never needs cleaning and doesn't smell!
Can you please not use "shit"? It's not that I mind or think it's profane, it's just so generic-meaning now (i.e. thing I don't like or involved in things I don't like happening) that when you say "my dog is unable to eat the shit", I'm not completely sure if you mean the poop, the litter or some other part of the whole construction.
Yes. The cat's digestive system isn't that efficient, and they end up excreting a lot of fat. Some dogs seem to regard it as candy. Yuck, I know. Probably a good way for them to get infected with toxoplasma gondii too.
Things like this are partly why I'm wary of the "ubiquitous security" (encrypt everything, tamperproof hardware, signed binaries, etc.) concept that a lot of people are pushing -- yes they can benefit the user but in the current environment of capitalism, chances are that any security measures are going to be used against you, to secure some company's profits, if they become cheap enough to implement.
As an aside, I think it's odd that there's alternate open-source firmware and cartridge resetters for a cat litter box, as well as some 3D printers, and there are completely-open-source 3D printers, but basically nothing at all of that sort for regular inkjet printers.
I used to have one of these, and I completely agree with the article. The DRM is shitty, the solution is expensive, and my house would periodically smell like baking cat feces. Eventually unit started to do the turd bakery routine more and more often (a worse failure mode is hardly even imaginable). So I replaced it with a Litter Robot[1].
With the exception of having to buy regular cat litter, which isn't a big deal, it's better in every way. It runs in a couple of minutes instead of like 40 minutes. It's quieter. The litter doesn't get tracked around nearly as much as the plastic pebbles. It also has never turned my house into a shit oven.
The best purchase I have ever made for my cat was using the expensive crystal litter. It costs way more than the cheap cardboard pellet one you can buy, but each crystal contains some kind of scent and really, I clean it once a day and it never smells that bad. They make a big mess if you don't put a mat beneath the tray though and get tracked through the house like tiny granules of sugar.
I have considered a robot litter box, but seems to me, the cost far outweighs the benefit of not having to change the litter yourself very quickly. These things are pricey and based on what I've read in this post and tonnes of reviews online, they're not particularly that great.
>The best purchase I have ever made for my cat was using the expensive crystal litter.
expensive or not, getting correct litter is the key. And the mat of course. And feeding good food to your cat - that would significantly take care about smell, consistency, frequency and other important characteristics of the output product, not even mentioning overall health and well being of the cat.
Agreed. Mine is very rugged, has a super simple mechanism (less things to break), and the only consumables are regular litter and trash bags. The cat loves it! Crap... this reminds me I should empty it.
I guess you wouldn't mind losing your warranty on a cat litter machine, but you definitely would suffer losing your warranty on a €20000 car. Although you currently don't have an alternative for that car's DRM, I'm sure someone will come up with something once these get popular enough.
Later edit
My statements were based on the previous rent-only strategy. Meanwhile, they also introduced the option to actually purchase the battery for ~€4000. As if your handing in your driving data wasn't enough, they can also disallow your charging at any time, and here is an excerpt from their TOS:
18.3 Battery Data
For management, administration, and accounting we will collect information about your use of the Battery and the Electric Vehicle. This
is to allow us to manage battery stocks, maintain hire payments at a competitive level, monitor performance of your Battery and monitor
mileage and fast charge use.
This data will be transmitted to us by the telematic box installed in the Vehicle. If you would like more information about this technical
data, please write to Renault ZE Customer Services, RCI Financial Services, P.O. Box 495, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD17 1GL.
If you have opted to install a Connection Pack we will also receive data about your location. If you do not wish us to receive location
data you may disconnect the telematic box. Instructions for disconnecting the telematic box will be in the Connection Pack.
To be honest, all your problems with the smell, and stuff getting everywhere, cleaning bags, etc. would go away with Worlds best cat litter (http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Best-Cat-Litter-Multiple/dp/B00...) - you just flush stuff down the toilet, and it's doesn't smell.
This is becoming so common. There are 3D printers that only take their very own special cartridges of plastic filament. The Form I, which started as a Kickstarter project, requires a proprietary resin fluid which costs $149/liter. (It's gone up; it was $130/l a few months ago.) However, it doesn't have a DRM system to enforce that.
My Da Vinci 3D printer does this - the cartridges report how much filament they have left, and the gcode for a print includes how much filament the print is meant to use. When the printer thinks a cartridge of filament is empty, it refuses to use it, even if it still has filament in it.
Like many other DRM'd products, there are hacks for the printer that can get around this (one resets the filament "odometer", another convinces the printer that your print uses zero meters of filament).
Existence of these hacks typically doesn't affect the makers of these DRM'd consumer-level products (like the cat litter box or the Keurig machine), in my estimation. Most consumers simply won't know that they have an option to either by choose another vendor, or find a hack to get around it.
People who buy 3D printers are already primed to hack that thing to pieces, though. In that case I think the DRM was a waste of time and money. They didn't understand their target market.
If there weren't already an overabundance of cats available at every shelter, I would say that your idea is actually plausible.
Internet sites like imgur could offer you discounted cats provided you were only able to upload funny videos or pictures of them to their own website, ensuring they get the resulting traffic.
It's not that ridiculous when you think about it - certain breeds are worth ridiculous amounts of money - how much longer until we see genetically engineered proofs of pedigree integrated into the DNA of the cats themselves? Perhaps something to stop you from breeding more?
Calling the chip 'DRM' sounds like media sensationalism, it really is just 'dumb memory'. Maybe I think this because I knew exactly how the cartridges worked when I did my initial research on the unit (and knew about the CartridgeGenius as an option before purchase), so I had no surprise when it worked how it did.
having cats is not free. and there are tons of entertainment options, the vast majority of which don't shit, smell, scratch, bite or significantly increase the chance of children or the unborn being with infected with a mind-altering brain parasite. but yes, agreed, cats can do cute things, petting is fun, and feeling them purr is great. just have to weigh the trade-offs and beware of alternatives.
factually true comments should never be punished down to -1. HN's voting system is broken and too easily abused by people being jerks, helping to reinforce groupthink
factually true, on-topic, helpful comments like mine should never be punished down to -4. HN's voting system is broken and too easily abused by people being jerks, helping to reinforce groupthink
shame on anyone that contributed to that. you're part of why HN has such a hateful, obnoxious sub-culture that drives more mature people away
I'm sorry, but no; your comment was not in any way helpful to anyone here.
People don't pick their hobbies purely based on cost. Suggesting "quit your hobby" / "pick a cheaper hobby" as a solution for any problem other than "I literally can't afford to pay my rent any more" makes you seem like a pretentious asshole, and even then, the way you phrased it was just plain rude.
So, here's why I think it's interesting. The companies that sell these products likely make the bulk of their profit from the consumables. That makes it economically viable to sell the machine at break even or possibly a loss. Then the money comes from the consumables. This is a pretty attractive business model both to the manufacturer and possibly even the consumer.
The downside, of course, is that competitors can swoop in and make consumables as well. So now you're selling hardware for a loss and other people are selling consumables for razor thin margins and you're screwed.
I don't think there is an obvious answer here. Some of these markets might not be viable if the hardware has to be sold for a profit. So that kinda sucks. But the DRM also treats consumers like shit, so that really sucks.
Is perhaps the issue just that it isn't clearly stated up front? Amazon sells two flavors of Kindle readers. One with ads for less money and one without ads for more ($20). Once upon a time Apple sold DRM mp3s for 99 cents and DRM free mp3s for $1.29. Would you pay an extra $50 for a DRM free kitty litter box? Or an extra $100 (33%) on a fancy coffee maker?
Here's my take away. Some products are subsidized by consumables. DRM enables that subsidy. Without DRM that product may not be viable. DRM can be minimally negative (Steam) but can also be maximum hostile (Keurig). Finding the balance is tough and we should talk more about it.