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> This is like claiming -- why it would it NOT be in the best interests of tech companies to create software that is extremely buggy so that people need to stay

> This is like claiming -- why it would it NOT be in the best interests of tech companies to create software that is extremely buggy so that people need to stay with them for upgrades? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Even that article claims "works best on monopolies"... Anyway, planned hardware obsolescence is a wildly different situation. Manufacturers get way with it because practically no consumers choose one product over another based on durability. To this day you still have all kinds of products with user replaceable batteries, but customers do not buy those in droves. They apparently prefer to have a 0.0001% thinner product. They buy those in droves... Compare this with a vaccine that promises N years of immunity. To be an apt analogy, you have to think of some metric that is evidently visible, highly desirable by customers, yet literally no manufacturer offers it.
- generalizations 5y ago
  > Compare this with a vaccine that promises N years of immunity. Except that they've backtracked: it no longer promises "immunity" and apparently it no longer promises "years". The vaccine doesn't have to be the best possible. It's obviously hard to make a good one; the problem is, the biggest players are the ones best suited to put the work in for a good vaccine, and if they don't choose to, it's possible they can just swallow up a smaller player that does manage to pull it off. There's been so many conversations on HN about the antitrust situation with the big tech corporations; is it so hard to consider that maybe there's a similar situation in biotech? Consumers aren't looking for the best vaccine; they're looking for the first one available, so they can be less scared about dying. That's the metric that's visible and desirable.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    > There's been so many conversations on HN about the antitrust situation with the big tech corporations; is it so hard to consider that maybe there's a similar situation in biotech? Sure there is. Sure there are. You hear about them when the antitrust law goes into effect. And? We obviously don't live in a world where all the software is intentionally filled with bugs, so at best you can use that as evidence that the antitrust laws are doing _something_. You can hardly use that as evidence that they are ineffective and there are trusts everywhere. > Consumers aren't looking for the best vaccine; they're looking for the first one available Apparently not, since they seem to get angry if they've used the one that "lasts for 6 months". Certainly there is no practical durability information right now, but are you arguing that once there is, they won't flee to the one that promises longer-term "protection"?
    - peteradio 5y ago
      Software doesn't need to be filled with bugs intentionally. Software is basically the art of writing and selectively removing bugs. It happens naturally and if for some reason you find your software has evolved to a state of optimal bugginess then you fire your last developer. See! No intention required.
    - generalizations 5y ago
      > Apparently not, since they seem to get angry if they've used the one that "lasts for 6 months". People get mad when their cheap stuff breaks, too, even if that wasn't part of their purchasing criteria. Now they're scared about dying, again. > You can hardly use that as evidence that they are ineffective and there are trusts everywhere. I'm not making such an extreme claim, because it's not binary. There's a middle ground that you've excluded. I'm using the existence of some antitrust in one sphere as evidence that some antitrust might also exist in another sphere. Edit: I think you might be misunderstanding my position: I'm defending the legitimacy of some very critical questions. Far as I can tell, you're arguing that my skepticism is flat-out unwarranted. Of the two, from a logic perspective, yours is the harder position to defend, because you're trying to prove a negative.
      - 5y ago

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

Even that article claims "works best on monopolies"... Anyway, planned hardware obsolescence is a wildly different situation. Manufacturers get way with it because practically no consumers choose one product over another based on durability. To this day you still have all kinds of products with user replaceable batteries, but customers do not buy those in droves. They apparently prefer to have a 0.0001% thinner product. They buy those in droves... Compare this with a vaccine that promises N years of immunity. To be an apt analogy, you have to think of some metric that is evidently visible, highly desirable by customers, yet literally no manufacturer offers it.

generalizations 5y ago
> Compare this with a vaccine that promises N years of immunity. Except that they've backtracked: it no longer promises "immunity" and apparently it no longer promises "years". The vaccine doesn't have to be the best possible. It's obviously hard to make a good one; the problem is, the biggest players are the ones best suited to put the work in for a good vaccine, and if they don't choose to, it's possible they can just swallow up a smaller player that does manage to pull it off. There's been so many conversations on HN about the antitrust situation with the big tech corporations; is it so hard to consider that maybe there's a similar situation in biotech? Consumers aren't looking for the best vaccine; they're looking for the first one available, so they can be less scared about dying. That's the metric that's visible and desirable.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  > There's been so many conversations on HN about the antitrust situation with the big tech corporations; is it so hard to consider that maybe there's a similar situation in biotech? Sure there is. Sure there are. You hear about them when the antitrust law goes into effect. And? We obviously don't live in a world where all the software is intentionally filled with bugs, so at best you can use that as evidence that the antitrust laws are doing _something_. You can hardly use that as evidence that they are ineffective and there are trusts everywhere. > Consumers aren't looking for the best vaccine; they're looking for the first one available Apparently not, since they seem to get angry if they've used the one that "lasts for 6 months". Certainly there is no practical durability information right now, but are you arguing that once there is, they won't flee to the one that promises longer-term "protection"?
  - peteradio 5y ago
    Software doesn't need to be filled with bugs intentionally. Software is basically the art of writing and selectively removing bugs. It happens naturally and if for some reason you find your software has evolved to a state of optimal bugginess then you fire your last developer. See! No intention required.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    > Apparently not, since they seem to get angry if they've used the one that "lasts for 6 months". People get mad when their cheap stuff breaks, too, even if that wasn't part of their purchasing criteria. Now they're scared about dying, again. > You can hardly use that as evidence that they are ineffective and there are trusts everywhere. I'm not making such an extreme claim, because it's not binary. There's a middle ground that you've excluded. I'm using the existence of some antitrust in one sphere as evidence that some antitrust might also exist in another sphere. Edit: I think you might be misunderstanding my position: I'm defending the legitimacy of some very critical questions. Far as I can tell, you're arguing that my skepticism is flat-out unwarranted. Of the two, from a logic perspective, yours is the harder position to defend, because you're trying to prove a negative.
    - 5y ago