3 ms·

Looks like nobody wants to make customer friendly product anymore, it needs to be packed to the brim with useless gimmicks and software which WILL become obsole

by pxtail 4y ago

Looks like nobody wants to make customer friendly product anymore, it needs to be packed to the brim with useless gimmicks and software which WILL become obsolete and outdated, and of course locked down as hard as possible. It's really weird, all this dichotomy and delusion - on one hand there are numerous educational initiatives, kids are learning from young age that we need to take care about environment. There are numerous government initiatives focused on telling individual people how to live, how many times to fly on vacation and how many times one is allowed to leave residential area. And yet I'm unable to buy electric bike WITH INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS - you know - just like all the bikes were for more than 200 years until now.

Syonyk 4y ago
I've been fairly happy with the Rad Power bikes - I test rode a few many years back and felt they did a good job of "Understanding how to build a good mass market ebike" - they got that a motor covers the sins of a heavy bike, and put the money where it matters. They also, at least at the time, used some fairly generic interfaces such that you could swap out battery packs/controllers/etc without much loss of function (though their console wouldn't work with a random replacement controller). My only real complaint is that they ship with cable disc brakes, which are... eh, adequate, in the flats. I much prefer dual piston hydraulic brakes for any sort of serious hill use. > Looks like nobody wants to make customer friendly product anymore... Of course not. Where's the money in that? How are you going to sell all the behavioral data on the backend if you don't have a cell modem in it? (car makers, I'm looking at you) > ...kids are learning from young age that we need to take care about environment. Sure! And in practice, this looks virtually indistinguishable from any other sort of consumerism, except it's Green Consumerism. You have to buy the right products to show that you Care(TM) about the environment, and, of course, have to have the money to buy those. How many people purchased Teslas because now a $100k luxury car was an environmental status signal, while living in gigantic houses and having 100 mile commutes? > And yet I'm unable to buy electric bike WITH INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS... It's not just ebikes. Bikes in general are going to manufacturer-proprietary parts. Low Tech Magazine had a long rant on it recently - https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles-sustainable-again.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles...
- wiredfool 4y ago
  It’s a rant on the internet, saying it was all better long ago. File it in the same bin with processors are faster so why is everything slower.

by pxtail 4y ago

Syonyk 4y ago

I've been fairly happy with the Rad Power bikes - I test rode a few many years back and felt they did a good job of "Understanding how to build a good mass market ebike" - they got that a motor covers the sins of a heavy bike, and put the money where it matters. They also, at least at the time, used some fairly generic interfaces such that you could swap out battery packs/controllers/etc without much loss of function (though their console wouldn't work with a random replacement controller). My only real complaint is that they ship with cable disc brakes, which are... eh, adequate, in the flats. I much prefer dual piston hydraulic brakes for any sort of serious hill use. > Looks like nobody wants to make customer friendly product anymore... Of course not. Where's the money in that? How are you going to sell all the behavioral data on the backend if you don't have a cell modem in it? (car makers, I'm looking at you) > ...kids are learning from young age that we need to take care about environment. Sure! And in practice, this looks virtually indistinguishable from any other sort of consumerism, except it's Green Consumerism. You have to buy the right products to show that you Care(TM) about the environment, and, of course, have to have the money to buy those. How many people purchased Teslas because now a $100k luxury car was an environmental status signal, while living in gigantic houses and having 100 mile commutes? > And yet I'm unable to buy electric bike WITH INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS... It's not just ebikes. Bikes in general are going to manufacturer-proprietary parts. Low Tech Magazine had a long rant on it recently - https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles-sustainable-again.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles...

wiredfool 4y ago
It’s a rant on the internet, saying it was all better long ago. File it in the same bin with processors are faster so why is everything slower.