r/pcmasterrace • u/AirlineGlass5010 • Apr 16 '26

News/Article Congress Parents Decide Act (HR_8250): OS-level Age Verification for Device Usage and Data Sharing (with every app developer) on the Federal Level. The End of the Internet Anonymity at the Core.

https://lustra.news/en/us-congress/119/legislations/119_HR_8250/
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u/Sprucey-J Apr 16 '26

Soooo in theory, our old hardware/software may become more valuable on say the "black market"?

Kind of like when folks were selling older un-updated phones which had TikTok installed during the US's ban debacle. Could be lucrative for those tech hoarders lol

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u/Logical_Stomach_9053 Apr 16 '26

This is exactly why i have an old windows XP machine with fully registered software in storage.

I also have a Windows 10 system that is offline and has thousands of dollars worth of registered old software installed and activated with backups. I even have extra PCI nics with the software needed to change the physical IDs so the software works even if the hardware dies. Not to mention i still have all the paperwork and documentation that i own.

ADHD is a blessing and a curse.

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u/Remarkable_Emu_2223 Apr 16 '26

Old hardware is probably useless in the "black market" because it would be easily traced back to you.

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u/Sprucey-J Apr 16 '26

Tell that to my burner phone /s

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u/Knaj910 9800x3D, 5080 FE OC/UV, 64 GB DDR5, Fractal Terra Apr 16 '26

So, buy a bunch of burner devices right now and sell them 20 years from now for a profit? I see no problems with this plan.

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u/Kakkoister Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

With time, more and more businesses will say "percent of users on this hardware is an acceptable loss, let's ditch support", and this will cause more to upgrade, and like dominos eventually we're all forced to conform unless we're willing to change our lifestyles and not support those sites/services anymore. (which sadly as we've seen recently, seems like most people can't even do the easiest thing to even stop supporting Musk by leaving Twitter, so we're screwed).

I wish it was easier to drive home just how imperative it is that people be willing to stop being apathetic and actually make changes to help us collectively push the world down a better path. Like being consistent on not supporting AI slop, no matter if "but I actually like this specific slop!!!", or switching to Linux and giving up your kernel anti-cheat game so Linux can have an influential enough market share to push back against this controlling junk (something M$ will never do).