6 ms·

This is very obviously not always true. For example, the Microsoft Surface line has always been a tiny blip in it's market and yet iFixit rated 5 years of produ

This is very obviously not always true. For example, the Microsoft Surface line has always been a tiny blip in it's market and yet iFixit rated 5 years of products the lowest score possible on their repairbility scale[0]. And it is not unusual at all for non-leading companies to have pretty anti-competitive practices. This whole comment feels like "yeah, well don't give them credit for it because they don't really mean it". I don't give a shit if they mean it. If they are doing pro-consumer things I'm going to reward them and if they stop doing it, I'm going to stop rewarding them. That's how you send a signal and get broadly better practices. Making up complicated theories for why you still shouldn't be happy about good things is both silly and doesn't help anything get better. [0]https://www.ifixit.com/tablet-repairability?sort=score https://www.ifixit.com/tablet-repairability?sort=score

supazek 3y ago
How are you rewarding them? By upvoting HN posts?
- dewert 3y ago
  That's an uncharitable interpretation. They likely mean they will buy Microsoft hardware until Microsoft becomes customer-unfriendly in this space. Whether that's a much bigger signal than an upvote might be debatable, though.
HeWhoLurksLate 3y ago
The surface laptops were also originally pushing the limits of slimness to push manufacturers to make pretty windows laptops, too, right?
- 666satanhimself 3y ago
  [dead]
zlg_codes 3y ago
Would you call it complicated to simply not be interested in software that reverts settings and babysits you, thwarting your control of the machine? Windows 10 and 11 do that and have telemetry baked in. I wouldn't consider valuing one's security or privacy as a complicated theory. Maybe you're more easily swayed but it takes more than a token "hey guiz we make repairable stuff" from the very firm that has tried to kill alternatives since its inception, to change my mind. It turns out that reputation matters for a business and I still remember the 90s.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  You're letting perfect be the enemey of the good. It's possible to do two things at once: say good job on repairability and also, bad job on software.
  - jfghi 3y ago
    I’d frame it more as describing inherent nature versus a minor attribute.
    - MostlyStable 3y ago
      Before this, your options were "Windows with lots of telemetry + non-repairable hardware". Today your option is "Windows with lots of telemetry + repairable hardware". That sounds like a strict improvement to me, even if I agree with you on the issues with Windows as an OS I am not personally in the market for these devices right now, but my work device is required to on Windows, and I am in a small enough org that my input would be sought if I needed a new device. I would very happily ask for a more repairable machine compared to a less repairable one, and having additional repairable options is a good thing. And if someone came to me asking for advice on what to get, but was unwilling to switch to linux, I'm glad that I have some new repairable options to provide them. Yes, the telemetry in windows is bad, but this is still a strictly superior situation that what we had previously, and it doesn't make the telemetry thing worse. I just don't get how bringing up other things that haven't improved (and may never improve!) invalidates the fact that this is better. Repairability seems to very slowly be becoming more common in consumer devices. Hopefully, it becomes standard enough that it's not something we have to be interested in, and focus can shift to things like software. But for now, both suck, and both need to get better, and I'm going to be happy any time either one of them improves.
mcpackieh 3y ago
When Microsoft isn't in the lead they might be pro-consumer. But not necessarily so, as you have found. The reverse is far more certain. When they're in the lead, they're assholes.
tomcam 3y ago
> I don't give a shit if they mean it. If they are doing pro-consumer things I'm going to reward them and if they stop doing it, I'm going to stop rewarding them. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, near the end of a long life, that I realized it’s much more humane to reward good behavior than to keep crapping on those who change their ways “too late”.
kenjackson 3y ago
Pro consumer means different things to different consumers. Like I could care less about ease to fix. But make it light with good battery life and good performance that’s what I care about as a consumer. If you have sacrifice any of those to make it easier to fix then it’s a bad “consumer” trade off IMO.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  In general these things are not actually trade offs. The amount of weight required to use an M.2 SSD or SODIMMs instead of soldering them is only a couple of grams, for example. It has no perceptible effect on any of the things you care about. It might, however, save the company a few cents per unit. At the cost of making the device unupgradable -- which lowers your resale value even if you never do it. So they cost you dozens to hundreds of dollars so they can save a few cents. That's customer-hostile. And, of course, the other reason they do it is to make the device unupgradable, so you have to buy another one sooner. Which is downright malicious.
  - kenjackson 3y ago
    I thought by removing the screw-in plastic frame and using the aluminum directly you could save thickness on the device?
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      The battery is already thicker than the logic board even with a slot on it. And because of that the trade off really goes the other way. If you're that tight for space you could put some logic on the part of the logic board beneath the slot and make the logic board smaller, leaving more room for the battery and allowing you to have a thinner battery with the same capacity. Moreover, "light with good battery life and good performance" doesn't even specify thickness. And quite sensibly so, because that's always been more of a marketing number about who can shave off an extra millimeter than anything that really matters. It's not as if one of them is 7mm thick and the other one is 70mm. And the pointless obsession with trivial differences is how we got this: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/24/17389220/apple-bendgate-internal-documents-iphone-6-plus https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/24/17389220/a...
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> I don't give a shit if they mean it. If they are doing pro-consumer things I'm going to reward them and if they stop doing it, I'm going to stop rewarding them. The issue is that you have to think two steps ahead. Microsoft wants to sell hardware, so they sometimes make hardware customers actually want. Reward them, you might say -- buy one of those instead of a Chromebook or a Mac. But then you get Windows with it. It pushes all of Microsoft's services on you, and if you're not paying attention your files end up on OneDrive and your documents end up in Microsoft-proprietary formats, and then you're stuck with that even if the next Surface goes back to being unrepairable. Now, you could buy a Surface and put Linux on it, for example. But that's not going to save you if that's not what you actually do.

supazek 3y ago

How are you rewarding them? By upvoting HN posts?

dewert 3y ago
That's an uncharitable interpretation. They likely mean they will buy Microsoft hardware until Microsoft becomes customer-unfriendly in this space. Whether that's a much bigger signal than an upvote might be debatable, though.

HeWhoLurksLate 3y ago

The surface laptops were also originally pushing the limits of slimness to push manufacturers to make pretty windows laptops, too, right?

666satanhimself 3y ago
[dead]

zlg_codes 3y ago

Would you call it complicated to simply not be interested in software that reverts settings and babysits you, thwarting your control of the machine? Windows 10 and 11 do that and have telemetry baked in. I wouldn't consider valuing one's security or privacy as a complicated theory. Maybe you're more easily swayed but it takes more than a token "hey guiz we make repairable stuff" from the very firm that has tried to kill alternatives since its inception, to change my mind. It turns out that reputation matters for a business and I still remember the 90s.

MostlyStable 3y ago
You're letting perfect be the enemey of the good. It's possible to do two things at once: say good job on repairability and also, bad job on software.
- jfghi 3y ago
  I’d frame it more as describing inherent nature versus a minor attribute.
  - MostlyStable 3y ago
    Before this, your options were "Windows with lots of telemetry + non-repairable hardware". Today your option is "Windows with lots of telemetry + repairable hardware". That sounds like a strict improvement to me, even if I agree with you on the issues with Windows as an OS I am not personally in the market for these devices right now, but my work device is required to on Windows, and I am in a small enough org that my input would be sought if I needed a new device. I would very happily ask for a more repairable machine compared to a less repairable one, and having additional repairable options is a good thing. And if someone came to me asking for advice on what to get, but was unwilling to switch to linux, I'm glad that I have some new repairable options to provide them. Yes, the telemetry in windows is bad, but this is still a strictly superior situation that what we had previously, and it doesn't make the telemetry thing worse. I just don't get how bringing up other things that haven't improved (and may never improve!) invalidates the fact that this is better. Repairability seems to very slowly be becoming more common in consumer devices. Hopefully, it becomes standard enough that it's not something we have to be interested in, and focus can shift to things like software. But for now, both suck, and both need to get better, and I'm going to be happy any time either one of them improves.

mcpackieh 3y ago

When Microsoft isn't in the lead they might be pro-consumer. But not necessarily so, as you have found. The reverse is far more certain. When they're in the lead, they're assholes.

tomcam 3y ago

> I don't give a shit if they mean it. If they are doing pro-consumer things I'm going to reward them and if they stop doing it, I'm going to stop rewarding them. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, near the end of a long life, that I realized it’s much more humane to reward good behavior than to keep crapping on those who change their ways “too late”.

kenjackson 3y ago

Pro consumer means different things to different consumers. Like I could care less about ease to fix. But make it light with good battery life and good performance that’s what I care about as a consumer. If you have sacrifice any of those to make it easier to fix then it’s a bad “consumer” trade off IMO.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
In general these things are not actually trade offs. The amount of weight required to use an M.2 SSD or SODIMMs instead of soldering them is only a couple of grams, for example. It has no perceptible effect on any of the things you care about. It might, however, save the company a few cents per unit. At the cost of making the device unupgradable -- which lowers your resale value even if you never do it. So they cost you dozens to hundreds of dollars so they can save a few cents. That's customer-hostile. And, of course, the other reason they do it is to make the device unupgradable, so you have to buy another one sooner. Which is downright malicious.
- kenjackson 3y ago
  I thought by removing the screw-in plastic frame and using the aluminum directly you could save thickness on the device?
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The battery is already thicker than the logic board even with a slot on it. And because of that the trade off really goes the other way. If you're that tight for space you could put some logic on the part of the logic board beneath the slot and make the logic board smaller, leaving more room for the battery and allowing you to have a thinner battery with the same capacity. Moreover, "light with good battery life and good performance" doesn't even specify thickness. And quite sensibly so, because that's always been more of a marketing number about who can shave off an extra millimeter than anything that really matters. It's not as if one of them is 7mm thick and the other one is 70mm. And the pointless obsession with trivial differences is how we got this: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/24/17389220/apple-bendgate-internal-documents-iphone-6-plus https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/24/17389220/a...

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> I don't give a shit if they mean it. If they are doing pro-consumer things I'm going to reward them and if they stop doing it, I'm going to stop rewarding them. The issue is that you have to think two steps ahead. Microsoft wants to sell hardware, so they sometimes make hardware customers actually want. Reward them, you might say -- buy one of those instead of a Chromebook or a Mac. But then you get Windows with it. It pushes all of Microsoft's services on you, and if you're not paying attention your files end up on OneDrive and your documents end up in Microsoft-proprietary formats, and then you're stuck with that even if the next Surface goes back to being unrepairable. Now, you could buy a Surface and put Linux on it, for example. But that's not going to save you if that's not what you actually do.