5 ms·

What percentage of consumers fit that bill? .1%? .01%? Less? It’s almost as if highly mainstream products are not made with the technical hobbyist in mind.

grogenaut 9y ago
Look at desktop PCs. Millions sold, almost all with swappable parts. There's a difference with "not made with x in mind" and "purposefully difficult to do anything with". If we want engineers who can build these products in the future it also helps that they can tear them apart as kids. Again is that what you actually want to reward? Do you want to be able to use your IoT device a week after the startup goes under or apple decides that it's time to sell everyone a new $500 speaker?
- IntronExon 9y ago
  Desktop PC’s are upgradeable by design, and frankly require repair pretty regularly. This is some IoT shit that will have support pulled before it can break and I suspect that you know that.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    I honestly can't remember the last time I had to repair anything on my desktop PC, but I think it was a hard drive (which I promptly replaced with an SSD). It's been running flawlessly since 2011.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      While admirable, 7 years of no repair, upgrades, or replacement is not the norm.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Every desktop I've owned, I've replaced because it eventually got too slow to be practical. I still have a 733MHz P3 and a 350MHz K6-2 somewhere, both probably still work just fine. Computers don't just break randomly.
jaysonelliot 9y ago
Entire industries were built around repairing consumer products. For decades, people were able to start small businesses repairing televisions, radios, vacuum cleaners, watches, etc. The average consumer wasn't able to repair their own typewriter, but they were able to pay a local entrepreneur a few dollars to do it for them. Mainstream products didn't become disposable instead of repairable until very recently.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  In general I agree with you, but the IoT is the soul of planned obsolescence. They flip a switch, and you’re the proud owner or a brick. A tractor, a PC, a cellphone? Sure, make it repairable. A networked speaker? I say that’s not a battle worth fighting. It’s also worth noting that history is full of disposable products, but since they tare need to break or be disposed of, we focus on the outliers which remain. The old bread mixer which can run until the end of time is memorable, the cheap blender is not.
  - xg15 9y ago
    Except this is not cheap. It's sold as a $300 luxury item and marketed as the height of technological development. Also I think the bigger picture is more worrying. Yes, planned obsolescence seems to be the soul of IoT - and for reasons perfectly understandable from the industries' PoV there seems to be immense push to make this the new norm. So if zero reparability isn't supposed to become the norm (more than it already is), I think drawing a little attention to cases like this is justified.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      I never said that it was cheap, just that it’s IoT shit. Avoid the IoT, it’s as simple as that. Nobody actually needs a networked toaster or HomePod, so don’t support it. Reforming something as born-broken as IoT is a mistake!
      - xg15 9y ago

grogenaut 9y ago

Look at desktop PCs. Millions sold, almost all with swappable parts. There's a difference with "not made with x in mind" and "purposefully difficult to do anything with". If we want engineers who can build these products in the future it also helps that they can tear them apart as kids. Again is that what you actually want to reward? Do you want to be able to use your IoT device a week after the startup goes under or apple decides that it's time to sell everyone a new $500 speaker?

IntronExon 9y ago
Desktop PC’s are upgradeable by design, and frankly require repair pretty regularly. This is some IoT shit that will have support pulled before it can break and I suspect that you know that.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I honestly can't remember the last time I had to repair anything on my desktop PC, but I think it was a hard drive (which I promptly replaced with an SSD). It's been running flawlessly since 2011.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    While admirable, 7 years of no repair, upgrades, or replacement is not the norm.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Every desktop I've owned, I've replaced because it eventually got too slow to be practical. I still have a 733MHz P3 and a 350MHz K6-2 somewhere, both probably still work just fine. Computers don't just break randomly.

jaysonelliot 9y ago

Entire industries were built around repairing consumer products. For decades, people were able to start small businesses repairing televisions, radios, vacuum cleaners, watches, etc. The average consumer wasn't able to repair their own typewriter, but they were able to pay a local entrepreneur a few dollars to do it for them. Mainstream products didn't become disposable instead of repairable until very recently.

IntronExon 9y ago
In general I agree with you, but the IoT is the soul of planned obsolescence. They flip a switch, and you’re the proud owner or a brick. A tractor, a PC, a cellphone? Sure, make it repairable. A networked speaker? I say that’s not a battle worth fighting. It’s also worth noting that history is full of disposable products, but since they tare need to break or be disposed of, we focus on the outliers which remain. The old bread mixer which can run until the end of time is memorable, the cheap blender is not.
- xg15 9y ago
  Except this is not cheap. It's sold as a $300 luxury item and marketed as the height of technological development. Also I think the bigger picture is more worrying. Yes, planned obsolescence seems to be the soul of IoT - and for reasons perfectly understandable from the industries' PoV there seems to be immense push to make this the new norm. So if zero reparability isn't supposed to become the norm (more than it already is), I think drawing a little attention to cases like this is justified.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    I never said that it was cheap, just that it’s IoT shit. Avoid the IoT, it’s as simple as that. Nobody actually needs a networked toaster or HomePod, so don’t support it. Reforming something as born-broken as IoT is a mistake!
    - xg15 9y ago