Plank 4: Affordability — And the Right to Own What You Buy
Pillar: Caring
What’s broken: Everyone running for office says “prices are too high,” and they’re right, and it’s not enough. Because affordability isn’t just prices going up. It’s ownership going away.
You buy a tractor you’re not allowed to repair. A phone designed to slow down. An appliance that dies when its app does. Last October, Microsoft ended free support for Windows 10 while Windows 11’s hardware requirements orphaned hundreds of millions of perfectly working computers — pay up, or your own machine becomes a security risk. You hit “buy” on a movie or a game, and what you actually bought was a revocable license that evaporates when a server shuts down or a licensing deal expires. Fan communities that keep abandoned games alive get cease-and-desist letters for the crime of preservation.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy” was supposed to be a conspiracy theory. Instead it’s a business model — and it’s a tax on being alive that hits hardest at the people with the least.
What I’d push for:
A federal Right to Repair — parts, tools, and documentation available to owners and independent shops, for everything from phones to tractors to wheelchairs.
Truth in “Buy” — if it can be remotely disabled, revoked, or shut down, it’s a rental and must be labeled one. And if a company bricks something you paid for, you’re owed a refund. Full stop.
End-of-life obligations — when a company abandons a connected product or an online game, they release what’s needed to keep it running: the servers, the code, or the keys. Killing a thing people paid for shouldn’t be a shrug.
Housing people can actually afford — build non-luxury supply, and stop letting institutional investors treat starter homes as a securities market while families bid against hedge funds.
Honest pricing — shrinkflation disclosure, junk-fee bans, and antitrust enforcement with actual teeth, because “the market” can’t fix what four companies quietly agree on.
(And yes, somewhere in here is my formal position that you shouldn’t need a small loan to keep playing the games you already paid for. We told you we take absurdity seriously. This is what that looks like as policy.)
Sources
Windows 10 end of support: October 14, 2025 (Microsoft lifecycle documentation; widely reported estimates of 200–400M PCs unable to meet Windows 11 hardware requirements).
