3 ms·

They could also intelligently and transparently implement planned obsolescence, which would be really nice. I am not annoyed when my bottle of laundry detergen

by VLM 11y ago

They could also intelligently and transparently implement planned obsolescence, which would be really nice. I am not annoyed when my bottle of laundry detergent empties. Even complaining the manufacturer only put 58 oz in the bottle knowing I'd have to buy more bottles doesn't impress me, I can see its not full and read right on the label. This isn't a serious problem at all for me because I see the exact amount thats in a bottle and purchasing more detergent transparently fits into my lifestyle as needed. It might be an environmental disaster to pollute the country with 10% more partially full detergent bottles, but for me personally, eh, whatever. What does annoy me is someone intentionally puts no heat sink on transistors or intentionally installs low temp rated capacitors such that randomly at some totally inconvenient time the appliance suddenly catastrophically fails, then I need to shop, be home for an entire day to coordinate delivery, figure out the new appliance on its schedule, its a huge PITA on the personal level. If it were scheduled and predictable, well, no problem then. I'd welcome a planned obsolescence clothes washer, for example, that had a five digit counter on the panel and when it reached zero I had to buy another. I could organize my life around that very conveniently.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Though what you describe sounds absolutely awful to me (I hate planned obsolescence for being a huge waste of limited resources as well as showing the customer a giant "fuck you"), it would at least solve the problem of important equipment breaking at the most inconvenient time (e.g. mid-Christmas). Sadly, I think we are heading towards exactly this future - except that it won't be a counter on a washing machine, it will be the extent of your lease for it. You renew your lease for the washing machine, the company replaces it with a new model and recyc^H^H^H^H^Hthrows away the old one. Hardware companies are starting to embrace DRM and connecting machines to the Internet for mostly user-hostile reasons. It's becoming less and less common that you can buy a device and utilize it to its full power the way you like. You have to pay additional fees to flip some bits that unlock functionality of your welder. Your laser cutter needs to be connected to the cloud all the time so that when the manufacturer goes down or pivots, your device gets bricked. One would think that DRMing coffee brewers is a dumbest idea ever, but in fact it is successful. As the old HN quote goes, "Any sufficiently advanced business model is indistinguishable from a scam."[0] We don't own our homes. We don't own our cars. We don't own our software. We don't own our phones. We're beginning to lose ownership over basic appliances. I'm not 100% sure yet if this trend is plain evil, but it sure feels like it. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941
- sokoloff 11y ago
  > You have to pay additional fees to flip some bits that unlock functionality of your welder. Or, isomorphically, you can pay less for a welder that doesn't have features that you don't care about. That's certainly true in the case of Rigol DSOs. You get a nice, entry-level performance scope at a nice, entry-level price. If you need more features, some are available via a software unlock. (Naturally, this scheme has been broken by some enterprising souls, but most people can't be bothered to chase that down to avoid paying the upgrade fee iff they need the additional features/performance.) This allows Rigol to make and stock a smaller number of physical SKUs (meaning the volume per SKU is higher and the price per SKU is lower). Some of that savings is passed to the consumer and some is kept by Rigol. Seems entirely reasonable (and unlike the laser cutter example, doesn't require on-going internet connectivity to Rigol and Rigol has no way to remotely brick [intentionally or via going out of business] your scope). That sounds like a win to consumers to me.
- VLM 11y ago
  You and I both hate it, and they don't care and are implementing it by shipping intentionally poorly engineered product to encourage totally random early product failure, optimistically without personal injury. I'd much rather prefer they shipped something bulletproof that had a counter, WRT personal convenience. OK so I got 72 laundry loads left and I can schedule a convenient weekend delivery for ... We're peasants, we don't own anything and if we think we do it'll be taken away. That's an annoying and unpleasant lesson to learn, but learning it has its own value. There is a decay of civilization aspect... you can tell a culture is dying when specialization dies. One way specialization dies is by making it cheaper to dis-intermediate and eliminate the specialization. Soon, it'll be too expensive for all but the rich to own clothes washers that run for more than a year. At that point we'll rent the use of a rich guys laundromat, or we'll hand wash. That lack of specialization is an indicator of societal collapse. "we will all share cars (via an app)" or "we will all share place-to-crash couches (via an app)" are the same deal. In that way it's a symptom of decay, not really evil. Evil would be setting off the collapse, encouraging it, trying to drag everyone else down... its like saying the blood chemistry lab results of a dying guy are evil; not really; the guy who shot him might be evil, but symptoms of the process are just an observation. Another example.. the only ways to get high quality wood furniture or wood work is either be very rich, have very poor taste, or become a woodworker yourself. Luckily I find it fun and relaxing as a hobby, although it's absolutely pitiful that due to de-specialization the best way for a software dev to obtain good carpentry work is to learn to do it himself. There are probably ways to make money off these large scale very long term trends. Rome didn't fall in a day, lots of money made on the way down.

by VLM 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Though what you describe sounds absolutely awful to me (I hate planned obsolescence for being a huge waste of limited resources as well as showing the customer a giant "fuck you"), it would at least solve the problem of important equipment breaking at the most inconvenient time (e.g. mid-Christmas). Sadly, I think we are heading towards exactly this future - except that it won't be a counter on a washing machine, it will be the extent of your lease for it. You renew your lease for the washing machine, the company replaces it with a new model and recyc^H^H^H^H^Hthrows away the old one. Hardware companies are starting to embrace DRM and connecting machines to the Internet for mostly user-hostile reasons. It's becoming less and less common that you can buy a device and utilize it to its full power the way you like. You have to pay additional fees to flip some bits that unlock functionality of your welder. Your laser cutter needs to be connected to the cloud all the time so that when the manufacturer goes down or pivots, your device gets bricked. One would think that DRMing coffee brewers is a dumbest idea ever, but in fact it is successful. As the old HN quote goes, "Any sufficiently advanced business model is indistinguishable from a scam."[0] We don't own our homes. We don't own our cars. We don't own our software. We don't own our phones. We're beginning to lose ownership over basic appliances. I'm not 100% sure yet if this trend is plain evil, but it sure feels like it. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941

sokoloff 11y ago
> You have to pay additional fees to flip some bits that unlock functionality of your welder. Or, isomorphically, you can pay less for a welder that doesn't have features that you don't care about. That's certainly true in the case of Rigol DSOs. You get a nice, entry-level performance scope at a nice, entry-level price. If you need more features, some are available via a software unlock. (Naturally, this scheme has been broken by some enterprising souls, but most people can't be bothered to chase that down to avoid paying the upgrade fee iff they need the additional features/performance.) This allows Rigol to make and stock a smaller number of physical SKUs (meaning the volume per SKU is higher and the price per SKU is lower). Some of that savings is passed to the consumer and some is kept by Rigol. Seems entirely reasonable (and unlike the laser cutter example, doesn't require on-going internet connectivity to Rigol and Rigol has no way to remotely brick [intentionally or via going out of business] your scope). That sounds like a win to consumers to me.
VLM 11y ago
You and I both hate it, and they don't care and are implementing it by shipping intentionally poorly engineered product to encourage totally random early product failure, optimistically without personal injury. I'd much rather prefer they shipped something bulletproof that had a counter, WRT personal convenience. OK so I got 72 laundry loads left and I can schedule a convenient weekend delivery for ... We're peasants, we don't own anything and if we think we do it'll be taken away. That's an annoying and unpleasant lesson to learn, but learning it has its own value. There is a decay of civilization aspect... you can tell a culture is dying when specialization dies. One way specialization dies is by making it cheaper to dis-intermediate and eliminate the specialization. Soon, it'll be too expensive for all but the rich to own clothes washers that run for more than a year. At that point we'll rent the use of a rich guys laundromat, or we'll hand wash. That lack of specialization is an indicator of societal collapse. "we will all share cars (via an app)" or "we will all share place-to-crash couches (via an app)" are the same deal. In that way it's a symptom of decay, not really evil. Evil would be setting off the collapse, encouraging it, trying to drag everyone else down... its like saying the blood chemistry lab results of a dying guy are evil; not really; the guy who shot him might be evil, but symptoms of the process are just an observation. Another example.. the only ways to get high quality wood furniture or wood work is either be very rich, have very poor taste, or become a woodworker yourself. Luckily I find it fun and relaxing as a hobby, although it's absolutely pitiful that due to de-specialization the best way for a software dev to obtain good carpentry work is to learn to do it himself. There are probably ways to make money off these large scale very long term trends. Rome didn't fall in a day, lots of money made on the way down.