In January, Timothy Wu’s electric rice cooker started ailing. His Zojirushi NS-ZCC10—a white, shoebox-size machine that plays a cheerful jingle when its contents have been steamed to fluffy excellence—wasn’t keeping rice warm for as long as it used to. Following a quarter century of almost daily service, the machine was so loved that his two young daughters (one of whom had years ago dubbed herself “rice monster”) requested a funeral. A few nights after the rice cooker’s demise, the family gathered around the machine, lit candles, and made speeches about what it had done for them. This faithful companion had accompanied Wu through at least four cities, a marriage, the birth of two children, and jobs in both the Obama and Biden administrations, outliving as many as 10 phones, several computers, and multiple cars. “There are not that many things in life which are utterly reliable, in some ways completely selfless, and so giving,” Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and a prominent critic of Big Tech, told me. The rice cooker, after all, is a perfect appliance in basically every way: a tabletop device that tells you what it does (cooks rice) and does what it says it will (cooks rice) with ease and without fail. You measure grains and water in a ratio provided by the cooker, pour everything into its inner pot, close the lid, and press a button. Within 30 minutes or so, you will have the ideal bowl of rice—pleasantly chewy, with grains that are not clumpy or dry.