3 ms·

You might be right! I don't admit to knowing the exact market dynamics in play here. That being said, it feels like your comment is missing the forest for one p

by fao_ 7y ago

You might be right! I don't admit to knowing the exact market dynamics in play here. That being said, it feels like your comment is missing the forest for one particular (perhaps rotten) tree. Firstly, addressing your argument: A lot of people shell over 1000$ and weeks of time on Thinkpad reworks that reuse older chassis but have upgraded components (See: The X210[0], the X62[1], the T430 modders[2], etc.[3][4]), not only is money clearly not an issue in this particular niché, the look of the machine isn't either. Secondly: Regardless of the exact dynamics in play, the parent post completely spectacularly missed the point of the article in question. [0]: https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/ [1]: https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ [2]: https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive-t430-modding-guide-3dff3f6a8e2e https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive-t430-modding-guide-3... [3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/index https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/index [4]: https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-guide https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-guid...

Spooky23 7y ago
I definitely think there are customers — I carried a rebuilt T5xx for a few years! The issue is the market changed about 8-10 years ago. I used to buy 20-30k desktops a year. 80% were the shitty commodity HP/Dell (example would be the HP Probook middle of the line). 20% were nicer devices like Thinkpads. The change was that high end use cases vanished as Intel started failing, so we’d buy more memory instead of a better device. The laptop use cases that remain all went Mac. Nobody cares about the quality or repairability of the average device. Service is outsourced and dominated by labor cost, a Dell PC tech is billed out as low as $25/visit and just replaces boxes. A competent tech who can rebuild computers will cost like $90k (in an out of the way place) and only be able to service 2-4 devices a day. You’re looking at 5-7x the cost for a benefit that nobody cares about. The market wants cheap commodity. There are probably 250k enthusiasts who would give a hoot about PCs, but their number is shrinking and the market has consolidated into a couple of big players, who won’t make enough money to invest in the market.

by fao_ 7y ago

Spooky23 7y ago

I definitely think there are customers — I carried a rebuilt T5xx for a few years! The issue is the market changed about 8-10 years ago. I used to buy 20-30k desktops a year. 80% were the shitty commodity HP/Dell (example would be the HP Probook middle of the line). 20% were nicer devices like Thinkpads. The change was that high end use cases vanished as Intel started failing, so we’d buy more memory instead of a better device. The laptop use cases that remain all went Mac. Nobody cares about the quality or repairability of the average device. Service is outsourced and dominated by labor cost, a Dell PC tech is billed out as low as $25/visit and just replaces boxes. A competent tech who can rebuild computers will cost like $90k (in an out of the way place) and only be able to service 2-4 devices a day. You’re looking at 5-7x the cost for a benefit that nobody cares about. The market wants cheap commodity. There are probably 250k enthusiasts who would give a hoot about PCs, but their number is shrinking and the market has consolidated into a couple of big players, who won’t make enough money to invest in the market.