O, look. A shiny!
It’s yours. But, not really.
Some may call it a paperweight. Hell, it looks, feels, and acts like a paperweight. I must warn you though: it was sold as a high-performance, high-speed, high-redundancy corporate router paperweight.
It is a beautiful paperweight indeed. You can place it on, under, or upside down next to that R100k MacBook Pro and look like an instant professional. It makes an excellent coffee coaster. It does an even better job of holding down that stack of invoices.
But! These excellent features are ONLY available on the “Anti-Subscription”. Pay that R-0 fee today and unlock the lack of reasonable use! Get your coaster today! Flashing LEDs and all!
This is the point you’ve come to. You’ve bought it, so it’s yours, right?
“Haha, No.”
The “Bridge Company” – the one that doesn’t build physical bridges, but hypothetical ones with proprietary LEDs – should respond to all emails with that phrase. The irony is, if you print their reply and framed it on your wall, they’d probably charge you a monthly subscription for the ink to remain visible.
Give it a year. Eventually, this shiny box might be discovered to be more than a capable paperweight.
It will run OpenWRT. Linux is free. And, on that day, your Mac will probably run Linux, too.
Rule 12: Ownership is a legacy concept. You don’t own the atoms; you just rent the right for them to vibrate.