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Is it? The razor I bought can't cut hair, the laptop I got has a stupidly nosiy fan, the phone I bought has a rapidly diminishing battery life, the headset I bo

Is it? The razor I bought can't cut hair, the laptop I got has a stupidly nosiy fan, the phone I bought has a rapidly diminishing battery life, the headset I bought makes a constant hiss, my OS and TV now spy on me. Do I even own my steam games? I have to rent my music and TV to get it at a reasonable price, but songs and shows disappear without explanation or warning. It seems to me things are worse than they used to be, it's harder than ever to find quality products, even meticulously researching everything. And that's before we even get onto forced obselence. Maybe I'm becoming a grump as I grow older but electronics brands you used to be able to trust are no longer sure bets and everything seems to have a nasty gotcha spyware or horrid EULA. Edit: although I do admit there's a lot of magical things, I love my Kindle, I love how my phone synchs with my Kindle when I'm in random queue, I love being able to get + give directions from my phone in random places. I just feel overall quality of goods has gone down as they become (worringly for the environment) disposible and consumers are losing control as their stuff is no longer theirs.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Maybe a case of increasing expectation. Owning your own movie or game was never all that cool - what with losing them, or scratching the CD, or the platform changing so they didn't run any more. Steam beats all that, at a cost of course. The chaotic state of shows and songs is another story. My outlet (e.g. Netflix) has shifting contracts and terms that are opaque to me. So I miss out by procrastinating. Still its better than broadcast TV ever was! That was somebody else deciding every night what I would watch. I'm an old grump too. But really, I should just have more patience when my phone won't connect. Its going to space after all!
- vtlynch 11y ago
  >Owning your own movie or game was never all that cool - what with losing them, or scratching the CD, or the platform changing so they didn't run any more. Steam beats all that, at a cost of course. So we replaced a flawed physical medium with a digital medium which, theoretically, should solve all those problems. But dark patterns, bad licensing terms, and loads of other problems (that are often the results of purposeful decisions) make that digital medium just as flawed.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Differently flawed. And actually very useful as it is - I log many more hours now playing (instead of thrashing over problems) because it almost always works. Wherever I am; whatever machine I'm on. There's no denying the benefits.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Yeah, and unfortunately, Netflix is more and more changing not just their contract/terms. Their main interface is breathtakingly annoying to use these days. I'd say that it's along the same spectrum of annoyance that the parent post is talking about. My expectations were increasing because the quality was increasing at the same rate. Now my expectations for them, despite all they've done, has fallen flat and dull. The most redeeming thing out of them these days for me is reading their tech blog, which isn't shoved down my throat unlike their own media content. :) At the risk of sounding like a hipster, I got rid of my TV and phone, along with a bunch of other personal affects and my happiness has gone through the roof. No need to have my expectations fail on when it's not even relevant. Obviously this can't happen for everyone, but it's something I recommend.
digi_owl 11y ago
The laptop has that fan because it needs to move all that hot air the CPU, GPU and whatevever-else-U that is doing who knows what inside the chassis. Similarly with the phone. The old phone did one thing, make and receive calls. Your new phone is in contact with a number of servers constantly, monitors location, gravity (screen rotation), proximity (so your ear do not hang up on people), and a bunch of other stuff. Also, while improving hardware is about using fewer atoms to do the same job, battery is age old chemistry. End result is that it takes longer to make better batteries. Never mind that more energetic batteries can be lethal if they are anything less than rugged. But yeah, creeping featuritis is a persistent problem.
anonymoushn 11y ago
You can still buy music. I recently bought a bunch of CDs for like $10 each. I've stored them in Amazon Cloud Drive for now. If that disappears without warning and my hard drive fails at the same time, I can rip them again.
xwkd 11y ago
"Electronics brands you used to be able to trust" only had that trust from historical establishment. I would argue that there are still brands that are trustworthy. They're just different brands. In 20 years we'll be talking about the same thing from a different reference point. For all of your other complaints (which I do agree with, for what it's worth), there has been a trade-off. Razors are smaller and in cartridge form because the market decided it was more important to shave quickly and conveniently than to be able to have the closest shave possible on your neck and your head. The phone you have has rapidly diminishing battery life because it has a display that rivals your computer's monitor in fidelity. I could go on, but I'm sure you know this already. I've been having my own "grumpy old man" moments lately, so this post hit a little close to home. I've been trying to keep in mind that behind those complaints, there's probably a value proposition somewhere. Find it and exploit it. It can only make the world better. And that "nasty gotcha spyware?" The horrid EULA? If you're as old as you sound, you know that's been the case for a long, long time. It's as easy to avoid now as it was then. You don't have to go full Stallman. Just be a savvy consumer.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  The trust thing has largely been sacrificed to placate the shareholders chasing that 3% annual growth. This even though said growth only really showed up during the industrial revolution and after WW2. The first because it was the first ever industrialization, and the second because much of Europe's industrial capacity had been blasted to bits. In essence, shareholders (and their useful idiots, the economists) expect infinite compound growth while living in a finite environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem
cm2012 11y ago
There are entire cottage industries online of excellent inexpensive razors, laptops with less noisy fans, and good headphones. You have a choice whether to buy the Walmart version of a product or the good version, and both are cheaper relatively compared to 20 years ago. That said, healthcare, education and real estate and much more expensive now, which are three of the things that matter most...

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Maybe a case of increasing expectation. Owning your own movie or game was never all that cool - what with losing them, or scratching the CD, or the platform changing so they didn't run any more. Steam beats all that, at a cost of course. The chaotic state of shows and songs is another story. My outlet (e.g. Netflix) has shifting contracts and terms that are opaque to me. So I miss out by procrastinating. Still its better than broadcast TV ever was! That was somebody else deciding every night what I would watch. I'm an old grump too. But really, I should just have more patience when my phone won't connect. Its going to space after all!

vtlynch 11y ago
>Owning your own movie or game was never all that cool - what with losing them, or scratching the CD, or the platform changing so they didn't run any more. Steam beats all that, at a cost of course. So we replaced a flawed physical medium with a digital medium which, theoretically, should solve all those problems. But dark patterns, bad licensing terms, and loads of other problems (that are often the results of purposeful decisions) make that digital medium just as flawed.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Differently flawed. And actually very useful as it is - I log many more hours now playing (instead of thrashing over problems) because it almost always works. Wherever I am; whatever machine I'm on. There's no denying the benefits.
bpchaps 11y ago
Yeah, and unfortunately, Netflix is more and more changing not just their contract/terms. Their main interface is breathtakingly annoying to use these days. I'd say that it's along the same spectrum of annoyance that the parent post is talking about. My expectations were increasing because the quality was increasing at the same rate. Now my expectations for them, despite all they've done, has fallen flat and dull. The most redeeming thing out of them these days for me is reading their tech blog, which isn't shoved down my throat unlike their own media content. :) At the risk of sounding like a hipster, I got rid of my TV and phone, along with a bunch of other personal affects and my happiness has gone through the roof. No need to have my expectations fail on when it's not even relevant. Obviously this can't happen for everyone, but it's something I recommend.

digi_owl 11y ago

The laptop has that fan because it needs to move all that hot air the CPU, GPU and whatevever-else-U that is doing who knows what inside the chassis. Similarly with the phone. The old phone did one thing, make and receive calls. Your new phone is in contact with a number of servers constantly, monitors location, gravity (screen rotation), proximity (so your ear do not hang up on people), and a bunch of other stuff. Also, while improving hardware is about using fewer atoms to do the same job, battery is age old chemistry. End result is that it takes longer to make better batteries. Never mind that more energetic batteries can be lethal if they are anything less than rugged. But yeah, creeping featuritis is a persistent problem.

anonymoushn 11y ago

You can still buy music. I recently bought a bunch of CDs for like $10 each. I've stored them in Amazon Cloud Drive for now. If that disappears without warning and my hard drive fails at the same time, I can rip them again.

xwkd 11y ago

"Electronics brands you used to be able to trust" only had that trust from historical establishment. I would argue that there are still brands that are trustworthy. They're just different brands. In 20 years we'll be talking about the same thing from a different reference point. For all of your other complaints (which I do agree with, for what it's worth), there has been a trade-off. Razors are smaller and in cartridge form because the market decided it was more important to shave quickly and conveniently than to be able to have the closest shave possible on your neck and your head. The phone you have has rapidly diminishing battery life because it has a display that rivals your computer's monitor in fidelity. I could go on, but I'm sure you know this already. I've been having my own "grumpy old man" moments lately, so this post hit a little close to home. I've been trying to keep in mind that behind those complaints, there's probably a value proposition somewhere. Find it and exploit it. It can only make the world better. And that "nasty gotcha spyware?" The horrid EULA? If you're as old as you sound, you know that's been the case for a long, long time. It's as easy to avoid now as it was then. You don't have to go full Stallman. Just be a savvy consumer.

digi_owl 11y ago
The trust thing has largely been sacrificed to placate the shareholders chasing that 3% annual growth. This even though said growth only really showed up during the industrial revolution and after WW2. The first because it was the first ever industrialization, and the second because much of Europe's industrial capacity had been blasted to bits. In essence, shareholders (and their useful idiots, the economists) expect infinite compound growth while living in a finite environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

cm2012 11y ago

There are entire cottage industries online of excellent inexpensive razors, laptops with less noisy fans, and good headphones. You have a choice whether to buy the Walmart version of a product or the good version, and both are cheaper relatively compared to 20 years ago. That said, healthcare, education and real estate and much more expensive now, which are three of the things that matter most...