4 ms·

Can you unpack? Software-defined planned obsolescence?

• sennight 5y ago
  Sure. Hardware producers have zero interest in supporting hardware they don't sell anymore, and if they sell a newer version that competes with the old then such maintenance is doubly costly - as it cuts into potential sales. But they can rely on developer laziness to eventually render what would otherwise be a durable good - into a consumable that must be constantly replaced in a predictable cycle. See the entirety of the smartphone market, for example. Apple chose its logo well, it is well documented that they've crippled functional hardware through software updates - turning hardware into a perishable good. But Android might provide the best example of grotesquely wasteful consumerism - only made possible by the ever dependable, and yet somehow still plausibly deniable, software bit rot.