4 ms·

Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware. I still re

by jokoon 9y ago

Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware. I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates. My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore. I don't like Apple products, but it surely is funny that they realized they were making durable products and started to see it as a problem.

juanuys 9y ago
> At one point, software should stop changing so often. Save for security fixes, but I agree. Sometimes software is "done".
tjr 9y ago
My current MacBook Pro is at about seven years; feeling like about time to replace it, just to be able to stay current.
nicky0 9y ago
In my recent experience, my Mac has got faster after each macOS update. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into performance. I'm just not seening the evidence of this "planned obsolescence". I would put it on the level of a conspiracy theory. Little hard evidence in favour, but anecdoes accepted as fact by those inclined to believe them. As a counter-anecdote, as it happens I'm typing this on my 2011 Mac mini, my main work machine, which is still going strong. Just upgraded to High Sierra - the seventh major OS version this machine has seen. It's working well and and no sign of Apple trying to force me to buy anything new.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  Apple products don't really seem to display this much. Maybe it's why (or because) they cost twice as much as products from other manufacturers.
- 10000100001010 9y ago
  It is a documented problem [1]. That does not mean that every company does it though. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obsolescence-460210/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obso...
  - lloeki 9y ago
    <rant> What? Apart for ink cartridges, for which some manufacturers are know to have some hard counters, this list is beyond ridiculous. Planned obsolescence means a conscious design to fail at a certain mark, a carefully evaluated MTBF in order to extract financial gain. 1. Just a description: "planned obsolescence" is wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. 2. Some ink cartridges are know to have hard counters, so that's one OK, but the recommendation is about taking a risk: third party ink might not be up to spec and clog things up (happens). 3. Backwards compat on SNES would have meant including the NES hardware into the SNES, driving costs up. Plus this happened in a modular way with addons such as the Super Game Boy. Also, the PS2, X360 and PS3 shelf life are a testament to the dedication of keeping things up and running. Also also, suddenly not keeping the old hardware around to throw it away somehow contradicts later claims of "buying used instead of new". 4. This is only valid with the cooperation of lazy teachers: "refer to exercise 4 on page 32". I've been using 10+ years old books to learn and teach math, physics, french, history... New editions strive to streamline the experience, fix mishaps, and comply with legal requirements and state-mandated education programs. 5. Fashion, by definition, is zeitgeist. Culture and style evolve, there's no conspiracy at play, this is human nature creatively plowing forward. 6. What's the benefit for MS to make people buy new computers? I don't see the logic here. If anything, people are less inclined to buy new software if it makes them buy a new computer. Do you really think there's a shady deal between Adobe and Dell so that Adobe makes its software hungrier and receive a cut on sales because Dell sales would go up? Maintaining old versions has a cost, and unless you want to ceaselessly accrete dead weight like a black hole you have two choices: go forward and cut dead weight at some point, or not go forward and be stuck in the past (because obviously everything was better back in the day, y'know). Also, software is made by people, and those people need to eat (even FOSS folks!), plus increasingly said software rely on services that need to be kept up running, and that has a cost too. Nothing entitles you to receive a lifetime of upgrades after paying a couple bucks (if at all). Expecting (almost coercing!) people to do what you want for free has a name: exploitation. 7. Nothing prompts you to buy a new car every year. People would be surprised at the number of common parts cars share if they were even remotely interested in mechanics. Not only the whole statement contradicts 3. but how would you buy used if nobody bought new cars and resold them? Also, there's not just old cars pollute more and are less safe. 8. I've yet to see a battery that outright disables itself after a set number of cycle use. Batteries are designed to last at least a given number of cycles, not at most. LiPo, which has taken the world by storm due to its lack of memory effect and outstanding performance and durability, is extremely dangerous to handle. Requirements as well as improvements in hardware have been plateauing, which makes it less appealing to have things componentized for upgrades. Hardware durability has dramatically increased too. The whole thing contributes to people changing stuff less often instead of more because it just works, for longer stretches of time. Again there is no wilful intent to cripple things. There is one egregious case that can be made about Android phones, but that's got more to do about lack of focus, misguided bullet-point differentiation strategy and subsequent lack of resource to keep phones up to date than a grim large scale scam. 9. Ah, light bulbs. Great example. You know, if you get cheap, badly engineered crap, it has a high probability of both being less efficient and not last long. That's not a grand evil scheme, that's just "Want cheap? Get crap." So, we get it, turning a profit is bad, corporations are evil and conspire to exploit the masses. Because that's what "planned obsolescence" is about: wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. How cynical a view is that, pushed by people that have no clue about what engineering is: designing within terrible, unfathomable physics, monetary and human constraints the best product you can. Abusive practices do exist, but seriously, most of the time it's just cost pressure or bad design (probably one driving the other). This kind of list is way too superficial and does nothing to make things better.
cstrat 9y ago
My previous MacBook worked 8 years - needed a battery replacement and an upgrade to a SSD. Granted it was a sluggish last year using it. My current MacBook has lasted me 3 years already and unless something drastic happens I can see it lasting another 3 easily. Only issue is the battery replacement might be more costly (old MacBook had a removable battery). HDD performance shouldn't be a bottleneck for me either, but who knows what's around the corner in tech. Obviously a gaming computer or something meant for advanced computing isn't going to last that long.
photojosh 9y ago
> My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore. I just sold a 4.5 year old 15" MacBook Pro for A$1550, it was originally A$3500. That makes the TCO equation look very nice indeed. And we only replaced it because my wife got a 12" for travel. I have the next model along 15" MBP (still 2013) and I'll keep it until it is a year out of macOS updates, then sell it. It's done pro-level photo and video editing, still plays Starcraft etc just fine, and is a great dev machine. I just repaired a 2009 iMac (hard drive failure), and it's also still supported by the latest macOS. Just got a 4 year old iPad repaired for $A90. It's stuck on iOS 9, and slow for web browsing, but still works fine as a PDF reader, note taker, and a few games for the kids. I can see a day coming where the same will be true of phones. But I get new iPhones now: to play with the newest tech, it's my primary camera for documenting family life. The "newest hardware" in iOS devices is supporting stuff like running neural net image recognition over entire photo libraries, doing 4K video capture and editing, and of course running whatever latest web monstrosity is out. People who don't want those features are fine to stick with older phones; I know quite a few family members still on iPhones 4S and 5.
userbinator 9y ago
My laptop (Thinkpad X60) is over 10 years old and still works well for what I use it for. There's even an FSF-approved free BIOS for it. My desktop is approaching 8 years, and I haven't found it limiting either, only buying more storage for it over time. I also have a backup server that's nearly 20 years old. All it does is serve disks so it doesn't need to be very fast either. It really depends on what you do and how you do it. Someone with more hardware demands or just using more bloated software would find systems of my specification unbearably slow, but they'd probably say the same of the very latest today.
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  Once you ditch largely inefficient commercial software, your hardware requirements drop significantly. So many applications written under the pressures of business are just such crap.
- some-guy 9y ago
  I have found that dual-core+ desktop machines from the mid-2000s last quite awhile. Laptops can be a mixed bag depending on how upgradable the internals are / how powerful the internal GPU is. I gave my sister recently a T420s that I had lying around, and the thing still screams.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
My desktop is 7 years old, admittedly that is a 3.3GHz Phenom II X6 with 16GB RAM, the highest available configuration on that socket/motherboard. It's still going strong, though of course it struggles with some newer games, which isn't as relevant to me as it used to be. My laptop is a refurb T420, around 5-6 years old. Runs Linux Mint and all the apps I need with no issues at all, still gets 5+ hours on battery. Computers have been "fast enough" for a long time.
- chestervonwinch 9y ago
  My desktop is an old Optiplex 760, apparently made in 2008, and its my main "home office" computer. I bought it from a public auction web site from the local university for around $20-30. I wiped Windows XP and installed Ubuntu. I upgraded the RAM to 6 GB for next to nothing (the limit is 8, I think). I've used it for nearly 3 years for daily use, general computing, and sometimes computationally intensive, days-long numerical experiments for research. Is it a top-of-the-line machine? No, but for grad student with virtually no budget, it suffices quite nicely.
TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
I'm going on 10 years with my gaming rig now. I've given it 2 video card upgrades. (It has a i7 965 Extreme, and cost a lot new, but I only paid $150 for it, and it's been amazing.) I do resent that I can't do such things with a laptop.
mcguire 9y ago
"My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years." My current System76 Gazelle is going on 6 years old. The battery has been mostly dead (I can change outlets without shutting down but not much more) and the NVidia graphics have never actually worked right under Linux, but with 16GB and a 2800MHz i7 it's fine for development and I haven't found anything to replace it with.

by jokoon 9y ago

juanuys 9y ago

> At one point, software should stop changing so often. Save for security fixes, but I agree. Sometimes software is "done".

tjr 9y ago

My current MacBook Pro is at about seven years; feeling like about time to replace it, just to be able to stay current.

nicky0 9y ago

In my recent experience, my Mac has got faster after each macOS update. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into performance. I'm just not seening the evidence of this "planned obsolescence". I would put it on the level of a conspiracy theory. Little hard evidence in favour, but anecdoes accepted as fact by those inclined to believe them. As a counter-anecdote, as it happens I'm typing this on my 2011 Mac mini, my main work machine, which is still going strong. Just upgraded to High Sierra - the seventh major OS version this machine has seen. It's working well and and no sign of Apple trying to force me to buy anything new.

alphaalpha101 9y ago
Apple products don't really seem to display this much. Maybe it's why (or because) they cost twice as much as products from other manufacturers.
10000100001010 9y ago
It is a documented problem [1]. That does not mean that every company does it though. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obsolescence-460210/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obso...
- lloeki 9y ago
  <rant> What? Apart for ink cartridges, for which some manufacturers are know to have some hard counters, this list is beyond ridiculous. Planned obsolescence means a conscious design to fail at a certain mark, a carefully evaluated MTBF in order to extract financial gain. 1. Just a description: "planned obsolescence" is wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. 2. Some ink cartridges are know to have hard counters, so that's one OK, but the recommendation is about taking a risk: third party ink might not be up to spec and clog things up (happens). 3. Backwards compat on SNES would have meant including the NES hardware into the SNES, driving costs up. Plus this happened in a modular way with addons such as the Super Game Boy. Also, the PS2, X360 and PS3 shelf life are a testament to the dedication of keeping things up and running. Also also, suddenly not keeping the old hardware around to throw it away somehow contradicts later claims of "buying used instead of new". 4. This is only valid with the cooperation of lazy teachers: "refer to exercise 4 on page 32". I've been using 10+ years old books to learn and teach math, physics, french, history... New editions strive to streamline the experience, fix mishaps, and comply with legal requirements and state-mandated education programs. 5. Fashion, by definition, is zeitgeist. Culture and style evolve, there's no conspiracy at play, this is human nature creatively plowing forward. 6. What's the benefit for MS to make people buy new computers? I don't see the logic here. If anything, people are less inclined to buy new software if it makes them buy a new computer. Do you really think there's a shady deal between Adobe and Dell so that Adobe makes its software hungrier and receive a cut on sales because Dell sales would go up? Maintaining old versions has a cost, and unless you want to ceaselessly accrete dead weight like a black hole you have two choices: go forward and cut dead weight at some point, or not go forward and be stuck in the past (because obviously everything was better back in the day, y'know). Also, software is made by people, and those people need to eat (even FOSS folks!), plus increasingly said software rely on services that need to be kept up running, and that has a cost too. Nothing entitles you to receive a lifetime of upgrades after paying a couple bucks (if at all). Expecting (almost coercing!) people to do what you want for free has a name: exploitation. 7. Nothing prompts you to buy a new car every year. People would be surprised at the number of common parts cars share if they were even remotely interested in mechanics. Not only the whole statement contradicts 3. but how would you buy used if nobody bought new cars and resold them? Also, there's not just old cars pollute more and are less safe. 8. I've yet to see a battery that outright disables itself after a set number of cycle use. Batteries are designed to last at least a given number of cycles, not at most. LiPo, which has taken the world by storm due to its lack of memory effect and outstanding performance and durability, is extremely dangerous to handle. Requirements as well as improvements in hardware have been plateauing, which makes it less appealing to have things componentized for upgrades. Hardware durability has dramatically increased too. The whole thing contributes to people changing stuff less often instead of more because it just works, for longer stretches of time. Again there is no wilful intent to cripple things. There is one egregious case that can be made about Android phones, but that's got more to do about lack of focus, misguided bullet-point differentiation strategy and subsequent lack of resource to keep phones up to date than a grim large scale scam. 9. Ah, light bulbs. Great example. You know, if you get cheap, badly engineered crap, it has a high probability of both being less efficient and not last long. That's not a grand evil scheme, that's just "Want cheap? Get crap." So, we get it, turning a profit is bad, corporations are evil and conspire to exploit the masses. Because that's what "planned obsolescence" is about: wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. How cynical a view is that, pushed by people that have no clue about what engineering is: designing within terrible, unfathomable physics, monetary and human constraints the best product you can. Abusive practices do exist, but seriously, most of the time it's just cost pressure or bad design (probably one driving the other). This kind of list is way too superficial and does nothing to make things better.

cstrat 9y ago

My previous MacBook worked 8 years - needed a battery replacement and an upgrade to a SSD. Granted it was a sluggish last year using it. My current MacBook has lasted me 3 years already and unless something drastic happens I can see it lasting another 3 easily. Only issue is the battery replacement might be more costly (old MacBook had a removable battery). HDD performance shouldn't be a bottleneck for me either, but who knows what's around the corner in tech. Obviously a gaming computer or something meant for advanced computing isn't going to last that long.

photojosh 9y ago

> My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore. I just sold a 4.5 year old 15" MacBook Pro for A$1550, it was originally A$3500. That makes the TCO equation look very nice indeed. And we only replaced it because my wife got a 12" for travel. I have the next model along 15" MBP (still 2013) and I'll keep it until it is a year out of macOS updates, then sell it. It's done pro-level photo and video editing, still plays Starcraft etc just fine, and is a great dev machine. I just repaired a 2009 iMac (hard drive failure), and it's also still supported by the latest macOS. Just got a 4 year old iPad repaired for $A90. It's stuck on iOS 9, and slow for web browsing, but still works fine as a PDF reader, note taker, and a few games for the kids. I can see a day coming where the same will be true of phones. But I get new iPhones now: to play with the newest tech, it's my primary camera for documenting family life. The "newest hardware" in iOS devices is supporting stuff like running neural net image recognition over entire photo libraries, doing 4K video capture and editing, and of course running whatever latest web monstrosity is out. People who don't want those features are fine to stick with older phones; I know quite a few family members still on iPhones 4S and 5.

userbinator 9y ago

My laptop (Thinkpad X60) is over 10 years old and still works well for what I use it for. There's even an FSF-approved free BIOS for it. My desktop is approaching 8 years, and I haven't found it limiting either, only buying more storage for it over time. I also have a backup server that's nearly 20 years old. All it does is serve disks so it doesn't need to be very fast either. It really depends on what you do and how you do it. Someone with more hardware demands or just using more bloated software would find systems of my specification unbearably slow, but they'd probably say the same of the very latest today.

amiga-workbench 9y ago
Once you ditch largely inefficient commercial software, your hardware requirements drop significantly. So many applications written under the pressures of business are just such crap.
some-guy 9y ago
I have found that dual-core+ desktop machines from the mid-2000s last quite awhile. Laptops can be a mixed bag depending on how upgradable the internals are / how powerful the internal GPU is. I gave my sister recently a T420s that I had lying around, and the thing still screams.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

My desktop is 7 years old, admittedly that is a 3.3GHz Phenom II X6 with 16GB RAM, the highest available configuration on that socket/motherboard. It's still going strong, though of course it struggles with some newer games, which isn't as relevant to me as it used to be. My laptop is a refurb T420, around 5-6 years old. Runs Linux Mint and all the apps I need with no issues at all, still gets 5+ hours on battery. Computers have been "fast enough" for a long time.

chestervonwinch 9y ago
My desktop is an old Optiplex 760, apparently made in 2008, and its my main "home office" computer. I bought it from a public auction web site from the local university for around $20-30. I wiped Windows XP and installed Ubuntu. I upgraded the RAM to 6 GB for next to nothing (the limit is 8, I think). I've used it for nearly 3 years for daily use, general computing, and sometimes computationally intensive, days-long numerical experiments for research. Is it a top-of-the-line machine? No, but for grad student with virtually no budget, it suffices quite nicely.

TheRealDunkirk 9y ago

I'm going on 10 years with my gaming rig now. I've given it 2 video card upgrades. (It has a i7 965 Extreme, and cost a lot new, but I only paid $150 for it, and it's been amazing.) I do resent that I can't do such things with a laptop.

mcguire 9y ago

"My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years." My current System76 Gazelle is going on 6 years old. The battery has been mostly dead (I can change outlets without shutting down but not much more) and the NVidia graphics have never actually worked right under Linux, but with 16GB and a 2800MHz i7 it's fine for development and I haven't found anything to replace it with.