4 ms·

Colorado bought Chromebooks to get kids through Covid. They’re already near EOL

8 points by roseway4 3y ago

roseway4 3y ago
Anybody know why Chromebooks would have <4 year OS support?
- h2odragon 3y ago
  To help ensure future hardware sales.
- bgirard 3y ago
  A more realistic answer is that the cost of maintaining the OS is probably high and the benefits of doing so are low with no direct revenue. Ideally devices maintenance guarantees would be factored into procurement decisions and skew the trade-off in the right way.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Ideally, there would be consumer or environmental protection laws to make sure that selling landfill androids/tablets was no longer profitable. For instance, manufacturers need to support their devices for at least 8 years from date of sale, or pay $100 per device-year of missed support. So, there would be a $700 tax on devices that are supported for one year.
    - bgirard 3y ago
      That's a good idea, although the numbers could use some tweaking.
- DANmode 3y ago
  Google doesn't even plan to be running the same OS kernel in a few years, let alone on the same last-gen-security hardware. Their desire to be known for cutting-edge hardware security + performance of any ring they happen to be boxing in appears to trump our desire for cheap hardware with long support guarantees.
- wmf 3y ago
  Chromebooks are supported for 6-7 years. But if you buy a model that's already several years old it will have less support remaining.
h2odragon 3y ago
As if kids weren't hard enough on things; these objects are forced on them (rather than something they wanted themselves), and loaded with all the negative associations of school. That any have survived this long is probably a glowing testament to the design and construction quality of the models they bought.
ab_testing 3y ago
I think this sounds about reasonable. Apple marks Macbooks as vintage about 5-6 years after launch. But Macbooks cost start at around 1299. If these $200-300 Chromebooks are lasting 4 years, then the schoos are still getting bang for their buck compared to buying Macbooks. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/01/apple-adds-eight-macs-to-vintage-products-list/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/01/apple-adds-eight-macs-t...
hedora 3y ago
Since the whole point of educational chromebooks is to force parents to consent to the harvesting of their childrens’ information, I assume these things are subsidized by Google. I wonder how hard it would be to run a third party OS on them. That’d simultaneously benefit the schools and kids, and screw over Google for being bad actors.
bradknowles 3y ago
The problem with Chromebooks and most smartphones is that the vendors only make money by selling new models. That's why Samsung squits out about 50 smartphone models per year -- they've basically got about a weeks worth of "new" life in them, and then they're already obsolete. When you're buying bottom-of-the-barrel junk, it's going to be functionally obsolete much faster than better quality equipment that will cost a lot more money. Officially, they might have support for longer than that, but practically the answer is going to be "well, you could solve this problem by buying one of our newer models". Same goes true for cars. If you buy a junker car, it's not going to last so long. Welcome to the modern disposable world. Throw it away and buy a newer one.

8 points by roseway4 3y ago

roseway4 3y ago

Anybody know why Chromebooks would have <4 year OS support?

h2odragon 3y ago
To help ensure future hardware sales.
bgirard 3y ago
A more realistic answer is that the cost of maintaining the OS is probably high and the benefits of doing so are low with no direct revenue. Ideally devices maintenance guarantees would be factored into procurement decisions and skew the trade-off in the right way.
- hedora 3y ago
  Ideally, there would be consumer or environmental protection laws to make sure that selling landfill androids/tablets was no longer profitable. For instance, manufacturers need to support their devices for at least 8 years from date of sale, or pay $100 per device-year of missed support. So, there would be a $700 tax on devices that are supported for one year.
  - bgirard 3y ago
    That's a good idea, although the numbers could use some tweaking.
DANmode 3y ago
Google doesn't even plan to be running the same OS kernel in a few years, let alone on the same last-gen-security hardware. Their desire to be known for cutting-edge hardware security + performance of any ring they happen to be boxing in appears to trump our desire for cheap hardware with long support guarantees.
wmf 3y ago
Chromebooks are supported for 6-7 years. But if you buy a model that's already several years old it will have less support remaining.

h2odragon 3y ago

As if kids weren't hard enough on things; these objects are forced on them (rather than something they wanted themselves), and loaded with all the negative associations of school. That any have survived this long is probably a glowing testament to the design and construction quality of the models they bought.

ab_testing 3y ago

I think this sounds about reasonable. Apple marks Macbooks as vintage about 5-6 years after launch. But Macbooks cost start at around 1299. If these $200-300 Chromebooks are lasting 4 years, then the schoos are still getting bang for their buck compared to buying Macbooks. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/01/apple-adds-eight-macs-to-vintage-products-list/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/01/apple-adds-eight-macs-t...

hedora 3y ago

Since the whole point of educational chromebooks is to force parents to consent to the harvesting of their childrens’ information, I assume these things are subsidized by Google. I wonder how hard it would be to run a third party OS on them. That’d simultaneously benefit the schools and kids, and screw over Google for being bad actors.

bradknowles 3y ago

The problem with Chromebooks and most smartphones is that the vendors only make money by selling new models. That's why Samsung squits out about 50 smartphone models per year -- they've basically got about a weeks worth of "new" life in them, and then they're already obsolete. When you're buying bottom-of-the-barrel junk, it's going to be functionally obsolete much faster than better quality equipment that will cost a lot more money. Officially, they might have support for longer than that, but practically the answer is going to be "well, you could solve this problem by buying one of our newer models". Same goes true for cars. If you buy a junker car, it's not going to last so long. Welcome to the modern disposable world. Throw it away and buy a newer one.