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> People have a whole bunch of useless outdated android devices laying around, have some horrible experience with them and could appreciate an ungoogled/unapple
by sidlls 9y ago
> People have a whole bunch of useless outdated android devices laying around, have some horrible experience with them and could appreciate an ungoogled/unappled linux-like distribution with more control for the user and updates.
I don't think this segment is very large. In fact I doubt most people care about the mechanisms of updates at all. The market of mobile is, as far as I can tell, basically a race to the bottom: consumers expect devices to be (relatively) disposable things, not worth expending too much effort worrying over. They want something that works well enough for their use that they can throw away and replace without being burdened by too much other context.
- subway 9y agoIt isn't a large segment, but it could easily be a relatively high profit margin. Look at projects like the Pyra -- it's effectively a one-man show producing an LTE connected ARM handheld while he holds a day job running a video production company. He has next to no upstream vendor support. It's been a slow road, but he's made it to the point of mass producing most of the components, and is shipping developer devices. This dude is at a major disadvantage in absolutely every single way when it comes to access to economies of scale, access to vendor documentation, and sheer manpower, but is still managing to ship a device geeks are clamoring to buy. I can't help but think one of the big players could serve those same geeks in a much more efficient (and profitable) manner, given their resources compared with what a community project can accomplish.