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Ah yes, the "free market" argument. Remind me of how that one went with the headphone jack. Seems I have less and less choices in that department these days, es

Ah yes, the "free market" argument. Remind me of how that one went with the headphone jack. Seems I have less and less choices in that department these days, especially at the flagship tier - despite it objectively being a worse device for it with almost no positives except saving a little bit of cost for the manufacturer. I do not accept the arguments on it being necessary for water resistance or providing much saving of internal storage either - since we have devices that demonstrate how these claims are bunk. My point is that maybe there needs to be an organised pushback against this instead of pretending like customers have perfect knowledge of the drawbacks and benefits associated with a particular design decision and are not at all affected by marketing.

least 5y ago
The free market is allowing a company like this one to exist because they're banking on there being enough people that care about this sort of thing to buy into their device rather than buying from a well established brand. That assumption will be put to the test very soon and advocates for this sort of device have a great opportunity to do so. The bitter reality though is that there might be a market large enough to sustain a company like this, but it won't make any big waves in the industry as a whole. Because people generally don't care. > Seems I have less and less choices in that department these days, especially at the flagship tier You're making a conscious decision about what sort of compromises you're willing to make with regards to your devices, just as everyone else is that buys electronic devices. There are plenty of phones with headphone jacks that have premium hardware specs. Sure, Apple doesn't have it. Samsung doesn't. But plenty of other manufacturers do, and people aren't buying them. Sony's top of the line smart phones have a headphone jack. LG's Vx0 line had headphone jacks and a fancy DAC built into them. ASUS's RoG phones have a headphone jack too. There's plenty of choice if it's actually that important to you. Buy those devices and hope that you can convince enough other people that the feature is as important to them as it is to you. You don't need to shit on other people's choices nor assume that they aren't informed about the choices they make to want for the things that you do.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > The free market is allowing a company like this one to exist The "free market" is controlled by a very small set of conglomerates. They get caught red handed deploying anticompetitive strategies every other week.
  - least 5y ago
    Yet this product is still coming to market despite that.
    - vimacs2 5y ago
      Which doesn't really disprove anything. Nobody is arguing that there are armed gunman that target any company that dares deviate from the chosen path of planned obsalescence. The argument though is that the market is overwhelmingly controlled by those that do practice it and furthermore, this practice has nothing to do with serving the interests of the consumer but that of the shareholder. The fact that there are some that have been persuaded through years of concentrated marketing that bad engineering decisions are desirable is more of an example of manufacturing consent than the "free market of ideas".
      - least 5y ago
        It's incredibly arrogant to assume that the only reason why people might come to a different conclusion from you is that they've been manipulated into thinking that way through marketing. It's simply impossible that the indoctrination only occurred to other people and not yourself, right? Your entire argument seems to be that "not every manufacturer's top of the line devices matches my vision for what is an ideal device, so I want to force them all to change to match that." Not everyone wants the same device as you and no, it's not just because they're all ignorant morons that've been manipulated into thinking differently from you. Why are you so vehemently against allowing other people to make their own decisions?
        vimacs2 5y ago

least 5y ago

The free market is allowing a company like this one to exist because they're banking on there being enough people that care about this sort of thing to buy into their device rather than buying from a well established brand. That assumption will be put to the test very soon and advocates for this sort of device have a great opportunity to do so. The bitter reality though is that there might be a market large enough to sustain a company like this, but it won't make any big waves in the industry as a whole. Because people generally don't care. > Seems I have less and less choices in that department these days, especially at the flagship tier You're making a conscious decision about what sort of compromises you're willing to make with regards to your devices, just as everyone else is that buys electronic devices. There are plenty of phones with headphone jacks that have premium hardware specs. Sure, Apple doesn't have it. Samsung doesn't. But plenty of other manufacturers do, and people aren't buying them. Sony's top of the line smart phones have a headphone jack. LG's Vx0 line had headphone jacks and a fancy DAC built into them. ASUS's RoG phones have a headphone jack too. There's plenty of choice if it's actually that important to you. Buy those devices and hope that you can convince enough other people that the feature is as important to them as it is to you. You don't need to shit on other people's choices nor assume that they aren't informed about the choices they make to want for the things that you do.

goodpoint 5y ago
> The free market is allowing a company like this one to exist The "free market" is controlled by a very small set of conglomerates. They get caught red handed deploying anticompetitive strategies every other week.
- least 5y ago
  Yet this product is still coming to market despite that.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    Which doesn't really disprove anything. Nobody is arguing that there are armed gunman that target any company that dares deviate from the chosen path of planned obsalescence. The argument though is that the market is overwhelmingly controlled by those that do practice it and furthermore, this practice has nothing to do with serving the interests of the consumer but that of the shareholder. The fact that there are some that have been persuaded through years of concentrated marketing that bad engineering decisions are desirable is more of an example of manufacturing consent than the "free market of ideas".
    - least 5y ago
      It's incredibly arrogant to assume that the only reason why people might come to a different conclusion from you is that they've been manipulated into thinking that way through marketing. It's simply impossible that the indoctrination only occurred to other people and not yourself, right? Your entire argument seems to be that "not every manufacturer's top of the line devices matches my vision for what is an ideal device, so I want to force them all to change to match that." Not everyone wants the same device as you and no, it's not just because they're all ignorant morons that've been manipulated into thinking differently from you. Why are you so vehemently against allowing other people to make their own decisions?
      - vimacs2 5y ago