5 ms·

When is a hardware maker going to figure out that selling something that works like a PC in terms of third party system updates will immediately become the thin

by zrm 5y ago

When is a hardware maker going to figure out that selling something that works like a PC in terms of third party system updates will immediately become the thing that techs buy and recommend? People are willingly paying iPhone prices for Purism and Pinephone hardware with low specs and old chips. Does Samsung not want this money?

dsr_ 5y ago
It used to be that people talked to their local techies before making technology purchases. Now people look at the ads and the product placement. If you want to sell millions of a device, that's how you do it.
- zrm 5y ago
  People still regularly ask me what kind of phone to get. I start by excluding the ones with literal malware and after that the primary determinant is price, because if it's going to be rapidly disposable anyway then there's no point in making a large investment. "Let's force them to buy a new phone more often" is the kind of first year on the job MBA move that sounds profitable on paper as long as you fail to notice that the average Android phone now sells for less than a third of the price of the average iPhone. And that's revenue; the difference in margins is even bigger.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    Not a single one of my friends or family (n=50) has asked me for phone recommendations in the past 4 years (and I can only recall two recommendation requests ever). It's certainly not common enough that you see mentions about it on HN or Reddit - and yet, you see mentions of adjacent things like requests for tech support. So, it's clearly not very common.
    - zrm 5y ago
      People vent about getting asked to do free tech support because it's time consuming unpaid labor. The premise of asking for a recommendation is that the tech has already done the research (e.g. for themselves) and can provide a two word answer off the top of their head. There is little reason to complain about this on a message board or even bother to remember when it happens. But it does. You even admit to doing it yourself. How many swings of a $400 purchase from one vendor to another does it take per capita to be enough to care about?
    - Bud 5y ago
      I'd say it's very common. I get requests on a nearly weekly basis. From both friends and family. Some have asked me several times.
mattl 5y ago
It's probably such a small amount of money that it's just not worth bothering with.
throw10920 5y ago
> People are willingly paying iPhone prices for Purism and Pinephone hardware with low specs and old chips. ...for almost certainly tiny numbers of sales in both cases, and nowhere near "iPhone prices" for Pinephones. Samsung cares about money, and their current strategy is far more lucrative than selling very small amounts of Librem devices at modest profit margins.
- zrm 5y ago
  > nowhere near "iPhone prices" for Pinephones iPhone SE is $399. PinePhone Pro is $399. Samsung is averaging ~$250. > ...for almost certainly tiny numbers of sales in both cases They're doing preorders and are regularly sold out and backordered, despite having high prices and old hardware and weird bugs. That is what high demand looks like. Meanwhile no change to the hardware is required and Samsung could carry on selling to everyone they currently do, plus all of those people. This whole comments section is full of people complaining about this. If you give them a choice between two otherwise fungible phones, one that has open source drivers etc. and can therefore run an up to date vanilla kernel indefinitely, why wouldn't they all choose that one?
  - post-it 5y ago
    > They're doing preorders and are regularly sold out and backordered, despite having high prices and old hardware and weird bugs. That is what high demand looks like. The custom Linux phone I make is also sold out! I've made zero units and there are zero available. That is what high demand looks like.
    - zrm 5y ago
      Is it sarcasm because you can't point to anyone who isn't selling out? There is clearly more demand than there is supply. This is the weirdest position to stake out. That nobody wants this because everybody who makes one has a line of customers around the block and mainstream media outlets are writing stories about how much people want this, which go to the front page of tech news aggregators because of all the people who feel the same way. What evidence of demand are you looking for? A larger production run which is also commercially successful? You can't expect that as a precondition for doing one.

by zrm 5y ago

dsr_ 5y ago

It used to be that people talked to their local techies before making technology purchases. Now people look at the ads and the product placement. If you want to sell millions of a device, that's how you do it.

zrm 5y ago
People still regularly ask me what kind of phone to get. I start by excluding the ones with literal malware and after that the primary determinant is price, because if it's going to be rapidly disposable anyway then there's no point in making a large investment. "Let's force them to buy a new phone more often" is the kind of first year on the job MBA move that sounds profitable on paper as long as you fail to notice that the average Android phone now sells for less than a third of the price of the average iPhone. And that's revenue; the difference in margins is even bigger.
- throw10920 5y ago
  Not a single one of my friends or family (n=50) has asked me for phone recommendations in the past 4 years (and I can only recall two recommendation requests ever). It's certainly not common enough that you see mentions about it on HN or Reddit - and yet, you see mentions of adjacent things like requests for tech support. So, it's clearly not very common.
  - zrm 5y ago
    People vent about getting asked to do free tech support because it's time consuming unpaid labor. The premise of asking for a recommendation is that the tech has already done the research (e.g. for themselves) and can provide a two word answer off the top of their head. There is little reason to complain about this on a message board or even bother to remember when it happens. But it does. You even admit to doing it yourself. How many swings of a $400 purchase from one vendor to another does it take per capita to be enough to care about?
  - Bud 5y ago
    I'd say it's very common. I get requests on a nearly weekly basis. From both friends and family. Some have asked me several times.

mattl 5y ago

It's probably such a small amount of money that it's just not worth bothering with.

throw10920 5y ago

> People are willingly paying iPhone prices for Purism and Pinephone hardware with low specs and old chips. ...for almost certainly tiny numbers of sales in both cases, and nowhere near "iPhone prices" for Pinephones. Samsung cares about money, and their current strategy is far more lucrative than selling very small amounts of Librem devices at modest profit margins.

zrm 5y ago
> nowhere near "iPhone prices" for Pinephones iPhone SE is $399. PinePhone Pro is $399. Samsung is averaging ~$250. > ...for almost certainly tiny numbers of sales in both cases They're doing preorders and are regularly sold out and backordered, despite having high prices and old hardware and weird bugs. That is what high demand looks like. Meanwhile no change to the hardware is required and Samsung could carry on selling to everyone they currently do, plus all of those people. This whole comments section is full of people complaining about this. If you give them a choice between two otherwise fungible phones, one that has open source drivers etc. and can therefore run an up to date vanilla kernel indefinitely, why wouldn't they all choose that one?
- post-it 5y ago
  > They're doing preorders and are regularly sold out and backordered, despite having high prices and old hardware and weird bugs. That is what high demand looks like. The custom Linux phone I make is also sold out! I've made zero units and there are zero available. That is what high demand looks like.
  - zrm 5y ago
    Is it sarcasm because you can't point to anyone who isn't selling out? There is clearly more demand than there is supply. This is the weirdest position to stake out. That nobody wants this because everybody who makes one has a line of customers around the block and mainstream media outlets are writing stories about how much people want this, which go to the front page of tech news aggregators because of all the people who feel the same way. What evidence of demand are you looking for? A larger production run which is also commercially successful? You can't expect that as a precondition for doing one.