4 ms·

I would think "right to repair" has a lot to do with this. When you have to replace everything only after a few years, a lot more chips would be needed.

Pelam 6y ago
Maybe this will somehow stop the insanity of premature obsolesence. A 6 year old Android tablet is hardware wise in great condition. Some games that happen to install work great. However, the last software update was about 4 years ago. The tablet has storage expansion, but due to artificial limitations in the Android system, only a fraction of software will utilize the sd card. These are only minor examples. I could rant for hours on the ”who cares, it’ll be garbage in a year attitude” that has invaded much of the tech world, but others have done a better job. I my self am some times party to this attitude. It all results in a lot of waste of all kinds and also bad user experience. To look at the silver lining, maybe this scarcity and some other trends will result in a small corrective trends in engineering and management. In the meanwhile I’ll keep dreaming of a new gaming PC for a year or two.
- berkes 6y ago
  It's small, and on the grand scale probably negligible, but e.g. Fairphone is making phones which are designed to be repaired and maintained. They are growing fast, year over year. If anything, such companies show there is demand and money to be made, there.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  I certainly stress a lot less, since I decided to get off the hype and upgrade train. I've got 600+ games on my Steam account that run perfectly on my PC, even though most of the hardware is 2011 vintage and the only "new" hardware in it is an SSD and an RX560. Life is much calmer in the slow lane.
  - Terr_ 6y ago
    Yeah, although I'm getting a little nervous about failure-rates now that some core parts of my system are in the 8-10 years old range. (Basically everything but the video card and SSD.) Particularly the factory-sealed liquid-loop, which has both moving parts in a pump and gradual liquid chemical degradation to consider. On the flip-side, that particular component seems like it would be less sensitive to silicon-fabbing issues.
    - KozmoNau7 6y ago
      My view is that if a component fails, I can either find a second-hand replacement or buy a replacement refurb PC and move necessary components over. I can get by with just my laptop for a while, but obviously I don't need a PC for work purposes, that would change the equation.
- Terr_ 6y ago
  > In the meanwhile I’ll keep dreaming of a new gaming PC for a year or two. I was finally looking at replacing the 8-ish-year old parts of my gaming PC which has otherwise been running like a champ (Intel 2500K), and now... Well, I guess I'll just focus a lot on pixel art games :P
playcache 6y ago
I was going to post about as much the same. To add to this is how everything is deprecated so quickly now. I like to use my phones until they break or I am almost forced to. I am just not inclined to buy a new model every year. Same with my laptops, TVs etc. I have an old Sony Ericsson which I can tell they no longer want to support, the updates are coming much more slowly and I swear with each one they are slowing the performance of the device (but perhaps that is being paranoid), I have an old thinkpad which runs a rolling release style linux distribution and so I don't need to upgrade all the time and my TV is 720p / non smart which looks fine to me. I am honestly happy with this lot, but the manufactorers most likely see me as a bad customer.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  I think you can go too far in your direction. A 720p TV doesn't look nearly as good as a Full HD or 4k. I remember watching a shot of a sky filled with stars on a blueray movie and having to pause it, just because it was that breathtaking. There is nothing wrong with a solid thinkpad if you can replace the battery so that it still works well, but my days of jumping from outlet to outlet because I got 20min on a full charge are over. So are the days of carrying a heavy laptop with a bulky charger. I brought a oneplus phone some years ago and I paid too much for it because I wanted a "great phone". I don't regret the ultra-fast charging and day+ battery though, and my next phone is probably also going to be a oneplus, just a much cheaper model. So if there is something to sum up this rambeling comment, it should probably be this: know what you are missing in your current tech, and upgrade as it makes sense to do so for your personal use case.

Pelam 6y ago

Maybe this will somehow stop the insanity of premature obsolesence. A 6 year old Android tablet is hardware wise in great condition. Some games that happen to install work great. However, the last software update was about 4 years ago. The tablet has storage expansion, but due to artificial limitations in the Android system, only a fraction of software will utilize the sd card. These are only minor examples. I could rant for hours on the ”who cares, it’ll be garbage in a year attitude” that has invaded much of the tech world, but others have done a better job. I my self am some times party to this attitude. It all results in a lot of waste of all kinds and also bad user experience. To look at the silver lining, maybe this scarcity and some other trends will result in a small corrective trends in engineering and management. In the meanwhile I’ll keep dreaming of a new gaming PC for a year or two.

berkes 6y ago
It's small, and on the grand scale probably negligible, but e.g. Fairphone is making phones which are designed to be repaired and maintained. They are growing fast, year over year. If anything, such companies show there is demand and money to be made, there.
KozmoNau7 6y ago
I certainly stress a lot less, since I decided to get off the hype and upgrade train. I've got 600+ games on my Steam account that run perfectly on my PC, even though most of the hardware is 2011 vintage and the only "new" hardware in it is an SSD and an RX560. Life is much calmer in the slow lane.
- Terr_ 6y ago
  Yeah, although I'm getting a little nervous about failure-rates now that some core parts of my system are in the 8-10 years old range. (Basically everything but the video card and SSD.) Particularly the factory-sealed liquid-loop, which has both moving parts in a pump and gradual liquid chemical degradation to consider. On the flip-side, that particular component seems like it would be less sensitive to silicon-fabbing issues.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    My view is that if a component fails, I can either find a second-hand replacement or buy a replacement refurb PC and move necessary components over. I can get by with just my laptop for a while, but obviously I don't need a PC for work purposes, that would change the equation.
Terr_ 6y ago
> In the meanwhile I’ll keep dreaming of a new gaming PC for a year or two. I was finally looking at replacing the 8-ish-year old parts of my gaming PC which has otherwise been running like a champ (Intel 2500K), and now... Well, I guess I'll just focus a lot on pixel art games :P

playcache 6y ago

I was going to post about as much the same. To add to this is how everything is deprecated so quickly now. I like to use my phones until they break or I am almost forced to. I am just not inclined to buy a new model every year. Same with my laptops, TVs etc. I have an old Sony Ericsson which I can tell they no longer want to support, the updates are coming much more slowly and I swear with each one they are slowing the performance of the device (but perhaps that is being paranoid), I have an old thinkpad which runs a rolling release style linux distribution and so I don't need to upgrade all the time and my TV is 720p / non smart which looks fine to me. I am honestly happy with this lot, but the manufactorers most likely see me as a bad customer.

tomjen3 6y ago
I think you can go too far in your direction. A 720p TV doesn't look nearly as good as a Full HD or 4k. I remember watching a shot of a sky filled with stars on a blueray movie and having to pause it, just because it was that breathtaking. There is nothing wrong with a solid thinkpad if you can replace the battery so that it still works well, but my days of jumping from outlet to outlet because I got 20min on a full charge are over. So are the days of carrying a heavy laptop with a bulky charger. I brought a oneplus phone some years ago and I paid too much for it because I wanted a "great phone". I don't regret the ultra-fast charging and day+ battery though, and my next phone is probably also going to be a oneplus, just a much cheaper model. So if there is something to sum up this rambeling comment, it should probably be this: know what you are missing in your current tech, and upgrade as it makes sense to do so for your personal use case.