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I really hate how no big tech company is just making excellent hardware/software that people buy cus it's excellent. Everything (by big tech) seems to be some s

I really hate how no big tech company is just making excellent hardware/software that people buy cus it's excellent. Everything (by big tech) seems to be some sort of sleazy scam nowadays.

walterbell 4y ago
When the Linux port is ready, Apple M1 laptops will (relatively) qualify as excellent perf/watt and interop with non-Apple OS. There are cheap used HP/Dell thin clients based on the venerable AMD Puma SoC family found in the coreboot-based PC Engines APU2 (an excellent classic device which even has ECC memory). Hardkernel (small company from Korea) ODROID M1 is a capable Linux SBC /w NVME.
- everyone 4y ago
  If you're a tech-nerd then of course you can use your expertise to cobble together something excellent in the current milieu. My point is that big tech FAANG-like corps never seem to sell anything nowadays that's just simply good out of the box without any sleazy scam-like caveats. That's a pretty sorry state of affairs. It feels like we've taken one step forwards, one step backwards. Like in 80's you could buy a C64 which was just pure excellent right out of the box, but you had to be a bit of a tech nerd to buy one in the 1st place. Nowadays if you're a regular person and buy some popular computer you're buying into some sort of scam. You need to be tech-nerd to avoid the scam and get something good. In 80's tech nerds had C64 and bbc micro and so on, and everyone else had nothing and just missed out competely on the magic of computing. Nowadays tech nerds have their own pc's and everyone else has iOS and Android and almost completely misses out on the magic of computing.
  - walterbell 4y ago
    Sadly, modern businesses are often selling services rather than hardware. > everyone else has iOS and Android and almost completely misses out on the magic of computing If some of the iOS/iPadOS/Android people bought a ~$100 used PC, RPi or Linux SBC, they could use it as a relatively libre home "server/cloud" for learning. With Ubuntu and search engines, it's still somewhat possible to take vacations from walled gardens to visit magic computing castles that are open to user mods.
    - PaulsWallet 4y ago
      This still assumes the person in question has the time or desire to tinker around with stuff. Not everyone is a tech geek who wants to tinker around with stuff. What the parent post is saying is these things are off-limits to those people.
      - walterbell 4y ago
        Freedom isn't free. See Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch", with early telecom networks as a precedent, to understand why the glory days of general purpose computing were always likely to end, https://archive.ph/9BJ20 https://archive.ph/9BJ20 > “History shows a typical progression of information technologies,” he writes, “from somebody’s hobby to somebody’s industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system.” Eventually, entrepreneurs or regulators smash apart the closed system, and the cycle begins anew. The story covers the history of phones, radio, television, movies and, finally, the Internet. All of these businesses are susceptible to the cycle because all depend on networks.. On a positive note, the current U.S. FTC has been making antitrust noises about tech companies and platforms, after years of relative inaction. There's a nascent global effort to enshrine "right to repair" in consumer hardware regulations, which aligns with circular economy initiatives and hardware shortages. On a negative note, humans have deployed IoT "slave helmets" for realtime geofencing and control of construction workers with few legal rights, i.e. restricting not just the computing hardware, but the human body of the user, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33675370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33675370 On a cage match note, banks and tech companies are at a 2023 global regulatory crossroads on the future of digital currencies, including crypto and CBDCs. The music/film industries led to DRM restrictions on consumer hardware. Now we have bank-vs-tech competition to be legal and physical custodian of private keys for digital currency wallets. How will that change computing hardware and supply chain security regulation?
        everyone 4y ago
        Thats interesting. That theory seems to fit with my experience at least. I will read that book cheers.
  - golem14 4y ago
    This might be unpopular, but the Google/Nest WIFI pucks are pretty decent. I'd wish for a configuration other than the crappy mobile app, and better family controls, but compared to anything than a self rolled DDWRT it's really good out of the box, and it does its own FW upgrades.
- teux 4y ago
  I want to believe it will be great but even when apple was x86, linux was barely functional on the modern systems (2018-). Proprietary drivers for radio/sensors/audio were incredibly hard to get working and the blackbox security module they have made it nearly impossible to boot and use any peripherals. I was following somewhat closely for a long while and outside of hobby hacking, it was never a useable system from what I saw. Do you know if it’s looking better in that regard for M1? I’ve been out of the loop.
  - walterbell 4y ago
    There are a few positive signs, but of course we won't know for sure until it's done. The Apple Silicon approach involves firmware blobs (not good) with relatively stable interfaces (good for Linux maintainance, after the cost of initial port). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33155585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33155585
crazygringo 4y ago
... Apple? People are certainly buying iPhones and M1/2 laptops due to sheer hardware excellence. And whatever criticisms you might have of Apple, "sleazy scam" seems hard to apply. As for software, that's more a matter of personal opinion that people just disagree over. One person's excellence is another person's hard-to-use, another person's super-secure is yet another person's too-locked-down. There's really no winning.
- Danieru 4y ago
  Apple charges 30%! That's an even bigger scam for a typical app store user than the bink single camera upcharge. At least with Bink you get a service for that. With Apple you still need to pay the remaining 70% for the apps themselves.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Well I was talking about the hardware side. But no, charging 30% isn't a "scam". I mean, is Microsoft scamming people on Xbox games by taking an equivalent 30%? Is Sony also scamming with their 30% for Playstation games? 30% is industry-standard for app store distribution tied to hardware. And while you can argue maybe the percentage should be different, it's not a scam.
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      Of course it's a scam. Until they're finally forced to allow alternative app stores, it's the sleaziest scam. The other scams you listed are also scams.
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        No... that's not what the word "scam" means. A scam is something fraudulent. There's nothing fraudulent about 30% app store commissions. It's out in the open. If your grocery store makes a 30% profit on a packaged dessert it sells, do you think that's a scam too...??

I really hate how no big tech company is just making excellent hardware/software that people buy cus it's excellent. Everything (by big tech) seems to be some sort of sleazy scam nowadays.

walterbell 4y ago

When the Linux port is ready, Apple M1 laptops will (relatively) qualify as excellent perf/watt and interop with non-Apple OS. There are cheap used HP/Dell thin clients based on the venerable AMD Puma SoC family found in the coreboot-based PC Engines APU2 (an excellent classic device which even has ECC memory). Hardkernel (small company from Korea) ODROID M1 is a capable Linux SBC /w NVME.

everyone 4y ago
If you're a tech-nerd then of course you can use your expertise to cobble together something excellent in the current milieu. My point is that big tech FAANG-like corps never seem to sell anything nowadays that's just simply good out of the box without any sleazy scam-like caveats. That's a pretty sorry state of affairs. It feels like we've taken one step forwards, one step backwards. Like in 80's you could buy a C64 which was just pure excellent right out of the box, but you had to be a bit of a tech nerd to buy one in the 1st place. Nowadays if you're a regular person and buy some popular computer you're buying into some sort of scam. You need to be tech-nerd to avoid the scam and get something good. In 80's tech nerds had C64 and bbc micro and so on, and everyone else had nothing and just missed out competely on the magic of computing. Nowadays tech nerds have their own pc's and everyone else has iOS and Android and almost completely misses out on the magic of computing.
- walterbell 4y ago
  Sadly, modern businesses are often selling services rather than hardware. > everyone else has iOS and Android and almost completely misses out on the magic of computing If some of the iOS/iPadOS/Android people bought a ~$100 used PC, RPi or Linux SBC, they could use it as a relatively libre home "server/cloud" for learning. With Ubuntu and search engines, it's still somewhat possible to take vacations from walled gardens to visit magic computing castles that are open to user mods.
  - PaulsWallet 4y ago
    This still assumes the person in question has the time or desire to tinker around with stuff. Not everyone is a tech geek who wants to tinker around with stuff. What the parent post is saying is these things are off-limits to those people.
    - walterbell 4y ago
      Freedom isn't free. See Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch", with early telecom networks as a precedent, to understand why the glory days of general purpose computing were always likely to end, https://archive.ph/9BJ20 https://archive.ph/9BJ20 > “History shows a typical progression of information technologies,” he writes, “from somebody’s hobby to somebody’s industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system.” Eventually, entrepreneurs or regulators smash apart the closed system, and the cycle begins anew. The story covers the history of phones, radio, television, movies and, finally, the Internet. All of these businesses are susceptible to the cycle because all depend on networks.. On a positive note, the current U.S. FTC has been making antitrust noises about tech companies and platforms, after years of relative inaction. There's a nascent global effort to enshrine "right to repair" in consumer hardware regulations, which aligns with circular economy initiatives and hardware shortages. On a negative note, humans have deployed IoT "slave helmets" for realtime geofencing and control of construction workers with few legal rights, i.e. restricting not just the computing hardware, but the human body of the user, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33675370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33675370 On a cage match note, banks and tech companies are at a 2023 global regulatory crossroads on the future of digital currencies, including crypto and CBDCs. The music/film industries led to DRM restrictions on consumer hardware. Now we have bank-vs-tech competition to be legal and physical custodian of private keys for digital currency wallets. How will that change computing hardware and supply chain security regulation?
      - everyone 4y ago
        Thats interesting. That theory seems to fit with my experience at least. I will read that book cheers.
- golem14 4y ago
  This might be unpopular, but the Google/Nest WIFI pucks are pretty decent. I'd wish for a configuration other than the crappy mobile app, and better family controls, but compared to anything than a self rolled DDWRT it's really good out of the box, and it does its own FW upgrades.
teux 4y ago
I want to believe it will be great but even when apple was x86, linux was barely functional on the modern systems (2018-). Proprietary drivers for radio/sensors/audio were incredibly hard to get working and the blackbox security module they have made it nearly impossible to boot and use any peripherals. I was following somewhat closely for a long while and outside of hobby hacking, it was never a useable system from what I saw. Do you know if it’s looking better in that regard for M1? I’ve been out of the loop.
- walterbell 4y ago
  There are a few positive signs, but of course we won't know for sure until it's done. The Apple Silicon approach involves firmware blobs (not good) with relatively stable interfaces (good for Linux maintainance, after the cost of initial port). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33155585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33155585

crazygringo 4y ago

... Apple? People are certainly buying iPhones and M1/2 laptops due to sheer hardware excellence. And whatever criticisms you might have of Apple, "sleazy scam" seems hard to apply. As for software, that's more a matter of personal opinion that people just disagree over. One person's excellence is another person's hard-to-use, another person's super-secure is yet another person's too-locked-down. There's really no winning.

Danieru 4y ago
Apple charges 30%! That's an even bigger scam for a typical app store user than the bink single camera upcharge. At least with Bink you get a service for that. With Apple you still need to pay the remaining 70% for the apps themselves.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Well I was talking about the hardware side. But no, charging 30% isn't a "scam". I mean, is Microsoft scamming people on Xbox games by taking an equivalent 30%? Is Sony also scamming with their 30% for Playstation games? 30% is industry-standard for app store distribution tied to hardware. And while you can argue maybe the percentage should be different, it's not a scam.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    Of course it's a scam. Until they're finally forced to allow alternative app stores, it's the sleaziest scam. The other scams you listed are also scams.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      No... that's not what the word "scam" means. A scam is something fraudulent. There's nothing fraudulent about 30% app store commissions. It's out in the open. If your grocery store makes a 30% profit on a packaged dessert it sells, do you think that's a scam too...??