5 ms·

‘Tesla syndrome’ explains why tech is making us miserable

32 points by elorant 3y ago

amriksohata 3y ago
Is this all just FOMO and jealousy?
pogopop77 3y ago
Newer tech has added vast amounts of new functionality at the expense of making the older, simpler functions a bit more cumbersome and less reliable. Not everyone likes that trade off. For example, in the early 1980s, landline phones were indestructible, never dropped calls, and had 99.99999% uptime. VOIP phones are nowhere near that reliable, by any metric, but that's the price for fully redirect-able calls/messages among dozens of other useful features.
- ghusto 3y ago
  I'm one of the "not everyone"s. I've gone back to analogue radios, amps from the 90s, physical notebooks, old TVs, and even old gaming consoles. Why? Because they just work. There are no updates changing the interface, bugs to workaround (usually also from updates), annoyingly poor interface design to deal with, and the need to handle them with cotton in case they break. That old tech is so good, it works 30+ years later. Can you imagine anything you bought in the last year working thirty years from now?
  - pogopop77 3y ago
    I understand where you are coming from. I've done that with a few selected items, but in general I have chosen the newer options. There always seems to be a feature or two I find worth the hassle.
ghusto 3y ago
> It’s hard to understand how we got to a place where “efficiency” is adding an extra step to using a car door handle. Another great example is the removal of the scrollbar. The scrollbar was invented before IT was being influenced very much by the "Tesla Syndrome", and it shows because it's functional genius: It shows you where you are on the page, how big the page is (though this wasn't in the original implementations), and allows you to interact with your page location using a physical simile (the scrollbar), or by dragging on it if you don't have one. So of course it was banished by Apple.
misterbishop 3y ago
[flagged]
lacoolj 3y ago
very opinionated article
- giantrobot 3y ago
  Oh no!
JohnFen 3y ago
Well stated. I've been trying to find the words to make pretty much this case for years.
gdulli 3y ago
My Verizon Fios set top has a feature where it periodically flashes a warning on the TV when the remote's batteries are low. The problem is, these warnings start when the batteries still have several months of life left. So my choice is to consume batteries much faster than I need to, or put up with the garbage warnings on my screen interrupting my viewing. I choose the latter, and yes it's a more miserable experience than I've had with TV remotes before this new "innovation." Also, the power button on the remote doesn't reliably turn off my TV. 10% of the time it puts the set top in its sleep mode, keeping the TV on. Never in my life before this did I not trust a TV remote to do its basic functions. This was a solved problem.
- JR1427 3y ago
  I feel your pain.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  assuming the remote batteries are standard AAA or AA batteries, get a set of rechargeable batteries and stop worrying about it? I have a bunch of equipment that runs on standard rechargeable AA and AAA and I feel like its not a big deal. Can't really help you about your controller turning off the wrong device. Normally the fancy remotes these days have a device selection near the top, but sometimes its just buggy garbage.
  - milesvp 3y ago
    While I agree with using rechargables, this may make it worse. Most rechargables will have a voltage of 1.2 instead of alkaline battery 1.5. depending on the level set for a low battery, this may trigger the warnings much sooner. Really it’s an obnoxious feature. I can tell the battery is dead when it stops working. If the message is deemed useful then it should happen when it’s not obnoxious, say just before an “off” event triggered by said remote.
    - LegitShady 3y ago
      I would just switch them to a different pair of batteries when the message came, and charge the ones you just removed. Whether thats every 3 months or 5 months is sort of a shrug.
JR1427 3y ago
I whole-heartedly believe that a good fraction of what we have come to think of as innovation and progress is utterly useless. Technology and innovation have become products that often have no intrinsic value, but that marketing efforts convince people to desire, like popular caffeinated soft drinks. Since I'm more or less just getting some stuff of my chest, I'll continue to say that I'm sick of everything these days having to have a battery, and need frequent charging. One of my favourite pieces of "tech" that I own is a pair of good quality binoculars. They make things far away look big, all in glorious super-HD and with no battery! We should have awards for consumer tech that doesn't have a battery!
- soramimo 3y ago
  Prime example of this is "innovating" away the 3.5mm headphone jack, forcing people to replace perfectly fine $20 headphones with $150 wireless headphones that need to be charged all the time, have frequent connection problems and are easy to lose.
eschulz 3y ago
The Internet of Shit is all around us https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit
bsima 3y ago
My Tesla Model Y works great. As an "appliance" I am super happy with it. Most other smart appliances I've used, however, have not created joy in my life, and I try to buy the oldest and dumbest appliances I can. For our new oven last year, we specifically looked for something with real knobs and an LED display, zero smart features. (Viking is the last company that makes these afaict.) Turns out software is hard, if you're gonna make a smart appliance you have to build an entire software company. Tesla managed to do that but not other companies have.
- JR1427 3y ago
  Not only is software hard, but software is disposable, i.e. we don't set out to maintain it long term, instead we throw it away.
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  Lots of companies make ovens with physical knobs still. Smart features are creeping in but more in fridges than ovens.
- tigerBL00D 3y ago
  "The only problem is that Teslas suck." Don't you love when articles are based on opinions not supported by any rigorous arguments? I've owned two Teslas (and still own a Model X) and I drive between 10 and 20 different other car brands/models every year due to travel. I also test drive any electric car that catches my eye. And I can say very confidently that Tesla's don't suck if you compare them to other cars available out there. They are quite refined and well-engineered. Model X is really quite a marvel from the technical and comfort standpoints.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Since when do opinions have to be supported by rigorous arguments? They're just opinions, not arguments.
wirthjason 3y ago
Curious to what people think is actual innovation - hardware, software, anything.
- JR1427 3y ago
  I think you can only tell what true innovation is when looking backwards in time. Meaningful technology never really goes away. We still use the wheel, all the mechanical fasteners that were invented through human history (cordage, mechanical joinery, nails, rivets, screws, bolts etc), simple machinery (e.g. mechanical presses), simple electronics. Each new meaningful invention - that was once the pinnacle of technology - proves its worth by settling down in to a niche that will never go away. I wager that smart toasters will not be in this category...
  - wirthjason 3y ago
    I wonder if smart toasters could be in this category if the technology and APIs were made open in the way that a car is open (maybe not modern cars). You can swap out and replace components, fix broken parts, etc. even if the company no longer exists.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    I have just one thing to say to you: Casio F105W. SmartWhatevers will come and go, but the Casio will stay.
throwaway1777 3y ago
There’s a reason people fetishize retro products and it’s not only the aesthetics. For example turning on a radio and having it instantly work, not dealing with boot times, glitchy screens, unresponsive controls, failed Bluetooth connections, etc.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Ironically Tesla solved all of the above to the perfection IMO enshittification happens when companies try to copy Tesla/Apple and fail
- D13Fd 3y ago
  Yeah but a lot of it is survivorship bias. There was plenty of crap in the old days too, but we’ve thrown it all away by now, leaving only the good stuff.
  - throwaway1777 3y ago
    That is true
- gruez 3y ago
  I don't know about you, but the quintessential "retro" product in my mind is the record player, and while it might not have "boot times, glitchy screens, unresponsive controls, failed Bluetooth connections, etc.", it's still decidedly less convenient than something modern like your phone + wired speakers. I'm not really sure how reliable wireless speakers are, but in my experience bluetooth headphones are reliable enough that establishing a bluetooth connection is less hassle than putting in records/stylus and swapping them out later. People might like record players for other reasons (eg. they like the ceremony of all that), but I'm skeptical that people like them because they like "having it instantly work".
  - throwaway1777 3y ago
    Maybe you took me a little too literally. There are obviously many disadvantages to record players and having an infinite library of music on your phone is amazing. I don’t even own a record player or an old radio anymore, but the next time car play freezes up or my Bluetooth speaker decides to unpair I will wish I did.
unpopularopp 3y ago
[flagged]

32 points by elorant 3y ago

Is this all just FOMO and jealousy?

Newer tech has added vast amounts of new functionality at the expense of making the older, simpler functions a bit more cumbersome and less reliable. Not everyone likes that trade off. For example, in the early 1980s, landline phones were indestructible, never dropped calls, and had 99.99999% uptime. VOIP phones are nowhere near that reliable, by any metric, but that's the price for fully redirect-able calls/messages among dozens of other useful features.

ghusto 3y ago
I'm one of the "not everyone"s. I've gone back to analogue radios, amps from the 90s, physical notebooks, old TVs, and even old gaming consoles. Why? Because they just work. There are no updates changing the interface, bugs to workaround (usually also from updates), annoyingly poor interface design to deal with, and the need to handle them with cotton in case they break. That old tech is so good, it works 30+ years later. Can you imagine anything you bought in the last year working thirty years from now?
- pogopop77 3y ago
  I understand where you are coming from. I've done that with a few selected items, but in general I have chosen the newer options. There always seems to be a feature or two I find worth the hassle.

ghusto 3y ago

> It’s hard to understand how we got to a place where “efficiency” is adding an extra step to using a car door handle. Another great example is the removal of the scrollbar. The scrollbar was invented before IT was being influenced very much by the "Tesla Syndrome", and it shows because it's functional genius: It shows you where you are on the page, how big the page is (though this wasn't in the original implementations), and allows you to interact with your page location using a physical simile (the scrollbar), or by dragging on it if you don't have one. So of course it was banished by Apple.

misterbishop 3y ago

[flagged]

lacoolj 3y ago

very opinionated article

giantrobot 3y ago
Oh no!

JohnFen 3y ago

Well stated. I've been trying to find the words to make pretty much this case for years.

gdulli 3y ago

My Verizon Fios set top has a feature where it periodically flashes a warning on the TV when the remote's batteries are low. The problem is, these warnings start when the batteries still have several months of life left. So my choice is to consume batteries much faster than I need to, or put up with the garbage warnings on my screen interrupting my viewing. I choose the latter, and yes it's a more miserable experience than I've had with TV remotes before this new "innovation." Also, the power button on the remote doesn't reliably turn off my TV. 10% of the time it puts the set top in its sleep mode, keeping the TV on. Never in my life before this did I not trust a TV remote to do its basic functions. This was a solved problem.

JR1427 3y ago
I feel your pain.
LegitShady 3y ago
assuming the remote batteries are standard AAA or AA batteries, get a set of rechargeable batteries and stop worrying about it? I have a bunch of equipment that runs on standard rechargeable AA and AAA and I feel like its not a big deal. Can't really help you about your controller turning off the wrong device. Normally the fancy remotes these days have a device selection near the top, but sometimes its just buggy garbage.
- milesvp 3y ago
  While I agree with using rechargables, this may make it worse. Most rechargables will have a voltage of 1.2 instead of alkaline battery 1.5. depending on the level set for a low battery, this may trigger the warnings much sooner. Really it’s an obnoxious feature. I can tell the battery is dead when it stops working. If the message is deemed useful then it should happen when it’s not obnoxious, say just before an “off” event triggered by said remote.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I would just switch them to a different pair of batteries when the message came, and charge the ones you just removed. Whether thats every 3 months or 5 months is sort of a shrug.

JR1427 3y ago

I whole-heartedly believe that a good fraction of what we have come to think of as innovation and progress is utterly useless. Technology and innovation have become products that often have no intrinsic value, but that marketing efforts convince people to desire, like popular caffeinated soft drinks. Since I'm more or less just getting some stuff of my chest, I'll continue to say that I'm sick of everything these days having to have a battery, and need frequent charging. One of my favourite pieces of "tech" that I own is a pair of good quality binoculars. They make things far away look big, all in glorious super-HD and with no battery! We should have awards for consumer tech that doesn't have a battery!

soramimo 3y ago
Prime example of this is "innovating" away the 3.5mm headphone jack, forcing people to replace perfectly fine $20 headphones with $150 wireless headphones that need to be charged all the time, have frequent connection problems and are easy to lose.

eschulz 3y ago

The Internet of Shit is all around us https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit

bsima 3y ago

My Tesla Model Y works great. As an "appliance" I am super happy with it. Most other smart appliances I've used, however, have not created joy in my life, and I try to buy the oldest and dumbest appliances I can. For our new oven last year, we specifically looked for something with real knobs and an LED display, zero smart features. (Viking is the last company that makes these afaict.) Turns out software is hard, if you're gonna make a smart appliance you have to build an entire software company. Tesla managed to do that but not other companies have.

JR1427 3y ago
Not only is software hard, but software is disposable, i.e. we don't set out to maintain it long term, instead we throw it away.
throwaway1777 3y ago
Lots of companies make ovens with physical knobs still. Smart features are creeping in but more in fridges than ovens.
tigerBL00D 3y ago
"The only problem is that Teslas suck." Don't you love when articles are based on opinions not supported by any rigorous arguments? I've owned two Teslas (and still own a Model X) and I drive between 10 and 20 different other car brands/models every year due to travel. I also test drive any electric car that catches my eye. And I can say very confidently that Tesla's don't suck if you compare them to other cars available out there. They are quite refined and well-engineered. Model X is really quite a marvel from the technical and comfort standpoints.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Since when do opinions have to be supported by rigorous arguments? They're just opinions, not arguments.

wirthjason 3y ago

Curious to what people think is actual innovation - hardware, software, anything.

JR1427 3y ago
I think you can only tell what true innovation is when looking backwards in time. Meaningful technology never really goes away. We still use the wheel, all the mechanical fasteners that were invented through human history (cordage, mechanical joinery, nails, rivets, screws, bolts etc), simple machinery (e.g. mechanical presses), simple electronics. Each new meaningful invention - that was once the pinnacle of technology - proves its worth by settling down in to a niche that will never go away. I wager that smart toasters will not be in this category...
- wirthjason 3y ago
  I wonder if smart toasters could be in this category if the technology and APIs were made open in the way that a car is open (maybe not modern cars). You can swap out and replace components, fix broken parts, etc. even if the company no longer exists.
- glimshe 3y ago
  I have just one thing to say to you: Casio F105W. SmartWhatevers will come and go, but the Casio will stay.

throwaway1777 3y ago

There’s a reason people fetishize retro products and it’s not only the aesthetics. For example turning on a radio and having it instantly work, not dealing with boot times, glitchy screens, unresponsive controls, failed Bluetooth connections, etc.

dzhiurgis 3y ago
Ironically Tesla solved all of the above to the perfection IMO enshittification happens when companies try to copy Tesla/Apple and fail
D13Fd 3y ago
Yeah but a lot of it is survivorship bias. There was plenty of crap in the old days too, but we’ve thrown it all away by now, leaving only the good stuff.
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  That is true
gruez 3y ago
I don't know about you, but the quintessential "retro" product in my mind is the record player, and while it might not have "boot times, glitchy screens, unresponsive controls, failed Bluetooth connections, etc.", it's still decidedly less convenient than something modern like your phone + wired speakers. I'm not really sure how reliable wireless speakers are, but in my experience bluetooth headphones are reliable enough that establishing a bluetooth connection is less hassle than putting in records/stylus and swapping them out later. People might like record players for other reasons (eg. they like the ceremony of all that), but I'm skeptical that people like them because they like "having it instantly work".
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  Maybe you took me a little too literally. There are obviously many disadvantages to record players and having an infinite library of music on your phone is amazing. I don’t even own a record player or an old radio anymore, but the next time car play freezes up or my Bluetooth speaker decides to unpair I will wish I did.

unpopularopp 3y ago

[flagged]