They are taking away my choice to use the hardware as I see fit. And are granting themselves the ability to alter the value of my purchase after the fact. What's to stop them from deciding to update the driver in 3 months to cut the hash rate to 25%? Sony did this with the PS3 when they retroactively removed the OtherOS capability years after purchase. They were sued over this and ultimately settled.

> They are taking away my choice to use the hardware as I see fit.

No, they are simply selling you a product that you are voluntarily choosing to buy. You are perfectly within your right to not purchase something that you don't want.

> And are granting themselves the ability to alter the value of my purchase after the fact.

False. You seem to be unaware of whats going on. All of this stuff is being told to you ahead of time. Your software is not being modified after the fact.

You are simply buying a product, that comes pre-installed with certain software. If you don't like the software that is installed, up front, beforehand, then don't buy it.

Nothing is being modified after the fact.

> What's to stop them from deciding to update the driver

Thats not what happened. No updates are out. Instead, this is about new hardware, that has not been sold to anyone yet. Nothing is being updated.

> they were sued over this and ultimately settled.

Well then it is a good thing that nothing is being modified after it was purchased then isn't it? This only applies to unreleased products, that you have the choice of not buying.

> No, they are simply selling you a product that you are voluntarily choosing to buy. You are perfectly within your right to not purchase something that you don't want.

No, they are imposing restrictions on use after it's purchased.

> False. You seem to be unaware of whats going on.

You seem to be deliberately misrepresenting the argument. No one is claiming that this has actually occurred yet with this product. However, this is their stated policy, that they will artificially restrict what owners of the product can do via software drivers. Since it's via drivers, they can update them to further modify the capabilities of the devices after purchase. They have already done this in the past, when they modified drivers to disable capabilities if they detected more than one display adapter present (also to try to limit use in crypto mining).

> Thats not what happened. No updates are out. Instead, this is about new hardware, that has not been sold to anyone yet. Nothing is being updated.

No one is claiming this is currently happening. But they have a history of trying to control what people do with their hardware after it's been released and sold. So nothing has been updated YET.

> This only applies to unreleased products, that you have the choice of not buying.

Yes, it's good they're announcing their intention to change the functionality of devices after they've been purchased.

> No, they are imposing restrictions on use after it's purchased.

No they do not! Nobody has any 3060s yet! The cards become pre-installed with this software. If you don't like this software, don't buy the card. It is not an update! It is pre-installed software that you can choose not to buy.

> No one is claiming that this has actually occurred yet with this product.

So then you agree that nothing has been changed after the fact. Got it, that is my point. The cards are not sold yet. And you are being told, ahead of time what software is on those cards.

If you don't like that software, don't buy it.

> they can update them to further modify the capabilities of the devices after purchase.

Nothing has been updated on these specific cards after the fact. The cards are not sold yet. This is just about unsold devices, that you can choose to buy or not buy.

> No one is claiming this is currently happening.

So then you agree that your device has not been limited after the fact, and that the drivers are pre-installed? Got it. Thats my point.

> their intention to change the functionality

No. It is pre-installed software, that comes on a device, before you purchase it.

> No they do not! Nobody has any 3060s yet! The cards become pre-installed with this software. If you don't like this software, don't buy the card. It is not an update! It is pre-installed software that you can choose not to buy.

The cards do not come preinstalled with drivers. Drivers are installed in the OS and are updated regularly while the hardware is in support.

You have a very odd obsession with future/past here. These are statements that Nvidia has made about their plans for this hardware. Unless they change their mind, they will do this. It doesn't matter that it hasn't actually happened yet, it's their stated policy for these cards, as well as something they've done in the past without warning. And even if you buy the card knowing that the hash rate is restricted, there are a myriad other uses that they can now arbitrarily restrict at their whim.

> No. It is pre-installed software, that comes on a device, before you purchase it.

No, it's software you install separately. Since the drivers are required to have the card function, you must install them, and they can be updated at will by the manufacturer to remove capabilities.

When you are buying this kind of hardware, you primarily look at the hardware specs to understand the capabilities. In this case, those specs can't be trusted, because Nvidia is deciding what sort of code you're allowed to run on hardware you've purchased.

> And even if you buy the card knowing that the hash rate is restricted, there are a myriad other uses that they can now arbitrarily restrict at their whim.

But this isn't about you being sold something, and then it being change later.

Instead, you are being sold something, knowing full well what software is available.

> Drivers are installed in the OS and are updated regularly while the hardware is in support.

I have misphrased things then. What I should have said, is that you are being sold these cards, and you know ahead of time, that it is only this software that is available.

That is very different from buying something, under the expectation that other software, that has already been released, can do certain things, and then that software changing.

You know full well what software is going to be available, and you voluntarily choose to buy it, given that knowledge.

That is extremely different than if I bought something, and was given software X, and then that software X turned into software Y later on.

> Instead, you are being sold something, knowing full well what software is available.

Not really. Even if I buy a card and am content to live with the 50% reduction in hash rate (assuming that's why I wanted to buy it), Nvidia still has the ability to change the drivers and further restrict the hash rate at their whim.

> That is extremely different than if I bought something, and was given software X, and then that software X turned into software Y later on.

The problem is that we can't know if Software X will turn into Software Y later on. If I buy a card because it has certain specs, I expect to be able to exercise those capabilities. I don't think Nvidia should be able to try to restrict what I choose to do with those capabilities.