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This enshittifcation is endemic. Corporations cannot just release a good product and support it. The better the product is and the larger the customer base beco

• redox99 3y ago
  The problem is investors. Investors don't care about a sustainable business. They want infinite growth, and sucking dry both the the customers and the business itself.
  • tlrobinson 3y ago
    The problem is also your fellow consumers, most of whom don’t actually care about the things us nerds care about.
    • autoexec 3y ago
      They do care about getting screwed over. In my experience though they forget about it pretty fast and/or just feel overwhelmed and powerless about the situation. Maybe they'll avoid a specific brand after a bad experience, but they won't be checking over specs or considering requirements for the next thing they buy that rips them off.
      • hackernewds 3y ago
        Define "getting screwed over". For instance, I do not care about Google Maps using my location data in aggregate to improve traffic predictions. But so-called nerds would consider that "getting screwed over". There are uses of private data that can be harmlessly used to support functioning business models - the alternate is ads and/or subscriptions
        • autoexec 3y ago
          > Define "getting screwed over". For instance, I do not care about Google Maps using my location data in aggregate to improve traffic predictions. This guy didn't care about his location data going to google either: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike... He got screwed over big time. Thousands of dollars, just to avoid a jail cell. There are uses of personal data that can be harmless, but once that data is in the hands of someone else you don't have any say in how it is used (harmless or otherwise) and even if the people using your data today aren't doing anything abusive with it, that data will live forever and you never know who will end up with it in the future or what they will do with it. If the alternative is a subscription (assuming that actually means your data is not handed over to someone else) then at least you'll know what the cost of a product/service is, and you'll only pay for it while you're subscribed. If you pay with your data, once it's out of your hands it can be used against you again and again at any time so you never get to stop "paying" and can never know what it will ultimately cost you. As another example of getting screwed over, I've got a family member who bought a bluray of some movie in a shop, and then when she got home to play it found that her player refused because of DRM. The player wasn't connected to the internet and it needed to connect to a remote server in order to get permission to play her legally purchased media on her legally purchased player. She didn't understand what was happening and called me. The player didn't have wifi. The company sold a special USB wifi adapter at an insane price, otherwise she'd either have to move her furniture to take the player upstairs next to her modem and connect it physically, or run a very very long cable across her entire house. The next time she needed a bluray player, she avoided the old brand, but didn't even check to see if it had wifi capability before buying (she got lucky and it did).
• Flammy 3y ago
  I agree with this. I intentionally buy switches not bulbs or more complex gear. Then you plug your dirt cheap LED dumb bulb into the lamp and have it turn on and off with your voice. Much cheaper to replace when the bulb eventually burns too. Its stupid simple, just make sure everything connects to your assistant of choice (Hey Google / Alexa / Siri - maybe?) OR just stay in one company's walled garden and you're fine. Personally I'm a fan of Wyze's hardware but don't use their apps or more complex cameras.
  • inetknght 3y ago
    > OR just stay in one company's walled garden and you're fine Google wants to have a word with you about some of the products it's sold and quickly killed.
    • twism 3y ago
      yeah i've been in the google/nest garden for years ... yes the dual apps are weird and that's probably because Google Home does too much already that they had to keep the Nest app but nothing has stopped working for me nor gotten any emails telling me they are sunsetting something.
      • eigen 3y ago
        back in April, Google announced cancellation of several home products. dont know if they sent an email but they have a blog post. > starting April 8, 2024 support will stop for Nest Secure > stop support for Dropcam starting April 8, 2024. > we will officially end Works with Nest as of September 29, 2023. https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/An-update-for-our-Nest-Secure-Dropcam-and-Works-with-Nest-Users-and/ba-p/391449 https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/An-update-for-ou...
      • faeriechangling 3y ago
        3rd party "Works with google home" stuff will often stop getting updated causing more and more functionality to break over time. Admittedly this is an issue you can avoid by entirely buying the products actually made by Google, or at least carefully selecting third parties, but a huge amount of smarthome stuff is going to be rendered non-functional because of this sort of thing. I do think the 1st party Google Home stuff is supported well enough, and I don't think any of Google's competitors in the smarthome space are really offering anything that's obviously more compelling. I mostly recommend people either go with big brands or something that can be flashed with tasmota, pick your poison.
• nine_zeros 3y ago
  I observed this enshittification happen at my tech company. When we were smaller, the C-Suite bent over backwards to keep the product good and sane. Then they went public. This attracted a lot of new managers and ladder hoppers. As a public company, the board, the C-Suite, the immense layers of management all were incentivized to boost stock prices to boost their own compensation. They did this ethically during the low interest rate environment. But with higher interest rates, the only way to maintain growth is via scummy nickel and diming. So execs and all the management layers do nothing but enshittify the product so that the gravy train can continue for at least a few more quarters. Thus, customers are left hanging with shitty products. Imo, the solution is to never buy long-term subscriptions from public companies with listed stocks, if possible.
  • lazide 3y ago
    If you think public companies are bad, wait until you look at the track record of companies bought by private equity or hedge funds. :s
  • epicureanideal 3y ago
    > But with higher interest rates, the only way to maintain growth is via scummy nickel and diming. Or they could just charge more for new bulbs as the bulbs burn out. Why ruin the user experience? Just charge me an extra dollar and move on.
    • nine_zeros 3y ago
      > Why ruin the user experience? Just charge me an extra dollar and move on. That's risking losing you as a customer. Turns out, a lot of customers think our services are already too expensive.
  • bloqs 3y ago
    Why would interest rates be the factor here? Some of the highest interest rates historically was during the time that some of the best, most reliable products were born?
• tedivm 3y ago
  The Home Assistant team has a full company behind them, and they sell cloud services for the app for people who want it. Zigbee2MQTT has 113 sponsors. If you run them both with docker then updating is pretty simple with no package breaks. I do get your point though. Fixing the lack of a privacy focused option that works well for people who aren't familiar with systems administration would be nice.
  • uptown 3y ago
    “If you run them both with docker then updating is pretty simple with no package breaks.” Do you realize how insane this sounds for non-technical people who want to turn on a light in their livingroom?
    • koolba 3y ago
      Your grandma doesn’t know how to run containers as k8s services? Don’t tell me she still manually SSHes to each box to run the apps in the background using nohup?!
      • philistine 3y ago
        Grandma's still rocking the automation through the power lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm33KB2Th9M&t=680s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm33KB2Th9M&t=680s
        • sooperserieous 3y ago
          Hey, don't laugh! Literally last week I dug out my old X10 kit and set up my new office with it and a 25 year old remote that only needed new batteries. Still got the serial port dongle somewhere too in case I need to strap it to a Pi :)
      • adolph 3y ago
        Granny’s got Ansible, been treating em like a herd since way back using ssh.
    • 3y ago
• mostlysimilar 3y ago
  I agree with you wholeheartedly. Philips' revenue was ~20 billion last year. Why must these people shit all over everything to squeeze out even more on top of that? Where are all of the businesses with values that put humans first? Is it just necessary to be so ruthlessly destructive to make it at all?
  • NegativeLatency 3y ago
    Duty to shareholders or whatever the standard excuse is.
    • ncallaway 3y ago
      That’s a lie that the execs tell. Yes, they do have a duty to the shareholders, but the lie is that they are allowed to exercise their reasonable business judgement, which actually gives them very broad latitude to determine what’s in the shareholders interest. The execs could easily argue that in their business judgement it’s in the shareholders best interests if they make a long term play, and chose to forego maximizing profits in the short term, and instead maintain positive customer goodwill in the interests of maximizing profits over a longer time span. As long as they can provide some plausible reasoning behind their decision, they’re safe. So, the “I have to maximize shareholder value” argument is… on the surface true, but hides a ton of autonomy and decision making power that the executives have.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        About ten years ago, an activist investor tried to get Apple to reduce their green stance, in favor of profit. They wanted Apple to commit to only working for profit and shareholder return. Tim Cook got visibly angry at them, and told them that it was a core principle, and there was no way that Apple would compromise on it. Say what you will about him, but he has personal reasons for valuing privacy, and he knows that compromising one core principle, in favor of profit, will inevitably lead to compromising customer information. Looks like he made the right call. Apple is closing in on $3T.
• n0zmer 3y ago
  Unfortunately, you, I and probably most people here are the outliers. The enshitification happens because 90% of consumers can't live without their things and will repeated hand companies money over and over while they deliver less and less.
• TylerE 3y ago
  I’ve got a number (~12) KASA products that I’m pretty happy with. Yes, they’re cloud-based, but you can turn that off after initial setup and use them directly over Wi-Fi. That’s the other (mostly) good thing about… they’re Wi-Fi native and don’t use any sort of hub. Their iOS app is reasonably decent, and there are honesceeen widgets. Easy to build fairly advanced automations… for instance I have a rule that turns my bedside fan off and turns the bedroom lights on that runs 5 minutes before my alarm goes off, weekdays only. Most of what I use are their bulbs, which are both relatively cheap ($30 for a 4 pack), with excellent CRI, variable color temp (including a nightshirt style automation that goes whiter during the day, and both warmer and dimmer at night), and full RGB color. I probably wouldn’t recommend them for a whole home setup (you’d need pretty serious Wi-Fi routers) but for a case like mine where I’m only using it in a few rooms, it’s great.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • nunez 3y ago
    Love my Kasa products. API is actively maintained and works super well. Products themselves work great. Their colored bulbs can emit a ton of colors and support scenes. Not as bright as I'd like, though. You don't need the app if you're using Home Assistant, py-Kasa or something like that since the devices create their own WiFi network on first boot and you can program them from there. I run 30+ Wi-Fi bulbs on an eero mesh. These devices are noisy but they are responsive (slower than zigbee). Only disadvantage is that they live or die by DHCP. If they can't renew their lease, it can take a while for them to come back online.
    • TylerE 3y ago
      The one thing I really wish they could do colorwise is the classic "submarine dark red so it doesn't ruin your night vision" thing. The red really doesn't get deeper past a fairly modest point, it just gets dimmer.
  • dervjd 3y ago
    Agree that the Kasa app is great, but the QC on their hardware is lacking. I bought a four pack, and two of them just refuse to stay connected to my Unifi 6 Pro access points. After a day or two they drop connection and won't reconnect until you unplug/replug them. Timers, etc all stop working and they get stuck in whatever state they were in - even the button on the plug doesn't work. Zigbee/Z-Wave plugs have been rock solid reliable.
• dzdt 3y ago
  The alternative is government standards. You have power outlets you can interchangeably plug different appliances into. Why? Standards. Let there be a standard for color-controllable light sources that ensures interoperability of components, and then there will be competition to hit price-vs-shittiness balances suiting multiple parties.
  • akira2501 3y ago
    The national electrical code is a private standard. Many local laws directly reference it, but it's not created nor maintained by the government in any way. These standards often come about by simply recognizing the most popular solution and then codifying it. The government is not better at this than the market.
    • germinalphrase 3y ago
      It’s not the market that is enforcing those codes, and without enforcement - rules are just suggestions.
      • akira2501 3y ago
        Of course it is. Try buying insurance on a house that didn't get a building permit. Try reselling it. And how, exactly, does the government "enforce" the code? Are you put in jail for not following it?
        • mr_toad 3y ago
          I don’t know about the US but in many countries if a building can’t be brought up to code it will be condemned.
          • cowsandmilk 3y ago
            In the US, it can definitely reach the point where they will tear it down and send you the bill for the demolition. And if you don’t pay that bill, they’ll then auction off your land to get paid.
• arthur_sav 3y ago
  >The better the product is and the larger the customer base becomes, the higher >the likelihood that some business planner is going to see dollar signs and try to >squeeze the product for everything it’s worth Absolutely true. The more successful they are, the more likely they'll abuse their influence
• solardev 3y ago
  Just don't buy this stuff. A regular hand-operated light switch works fine and costs like 50 cents.
  • autoexec 3y ago
    My rule is to never buy hardware that needs an app to function. It's never once let me down.
    • hnreport 3y ago
      If you like different color ambience in your room, you will pretty much need an app. The colored light industry will never make hardware controls for adjusting hue/saturation/contrast.
      • autoexec 3y ago
        I don't doubt that you'll get better customization options with apps, but you aren't doomed to a life devoid of color without them. We've got some colored lighting in the form of plain old LED strips with wired controllers, we've had a couple old fashioned single color bulbs at times, and there are other options like this: https://www.amazon.com/GE-Lighting-93100205-Replacement-Spectrum/dp/B07WC324HZ https://www.amazon.com/GE-Lighting-93100205-Replacement-Spec... I'd really like to see something like openrgb (openrgb.org) for light bulbs though.
      • weikju 3y ago
        autoexec, like myself, will therefore choose to not like color ambiances in our rooms.
        • autoexec 3y ago
          I've managed to come up with a few app free options, more limited, but still effective and less abusive than an app. I'd make do with a string of Christmas lights if I had to.
      • tga 3y ago
• User23 3y ago
  Also, who ever made staff, let alone principal, by saying “yeah this product is basically perfect let’s just maintain it?”
• 22289d 3y ago
  If we funded you to build it and it worked, do you know what you'd do? The exact same thing you're complaining about :)
• GuB-42 3y ago
  For once, it is not enshittification. Home automation has always been shit. We talked about it when I was a student, more than 20 years ago, and it was always he same story: attempts at vendor lock down, a lack of standards, potential customers unconvinced. Sometimes, exceptionally, something not too bad comes out, but it never lasts. I ended up installing regular light bulbs with regular light switches connected to the breaker panel.
  • TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    The Philips Hue system has been a simple and reliable system for years. And now they are enshittifying this service. "Home Automation" perhaps has always been shit, but this specific system used to be great and now it is being made shittier in the name of short term profits. That is enshittification IMO.
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Could there be a collective development like Blender supported by donations over patreon?
• deleted 3y ago
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• JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Corporations cannot just release a good product and support it Plenty of companies do this. I'd wager most of the world economy consists of steady-state Mittelstand-esque firms that put out a good product with pride. The problem is Silicon Valley's growth mindset was emulated broadly at a time when business history familiarity fell. (In part due to lower-level folks in Silicon Valley having a knee-jerk reaction to MBAs. In part due to said MBA programs deciding studying cases from a hundred years ago wasn't cutting edge.) Growth is good. But trying to whip a business–that on its own will grow 2 or 3% a year and, with effort, 5 or 6%–to do 10 or 20% top-line YoY ruins it. The same way taking a growth business that could grow at 5 or 6% with effort, and instead committing to cutting its costs at 5% a year (the way one would do with a business that is in structural decline at a rate of 3 to 4% p.a.), is terrible strategy. This is garbage management. It's bad for customers. It's bad for shareholders. It's bad for the societies whose technical knowledge is being eroded. It's good for a set of managers whose behavior veers between stupid and corrupt. I don't know the solution. But it's not as radical as overhauling corporate America in its entirety.
  • callalex 3y ago
    Philips is a Dutch multinational conglomerate. You cannot make any sincere argument about how this is the fault of Silicon Vally, or even the United States. (Opinion) the only common denominator remaining is the underlying economic system.
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Philips is a Dutch multinational conglomerate. You cannot make any sincere argument about how this is the fault of Silicon Vally I never said it’s Silicon Valley’s fault. It’s the fault of managers emulating Silicon Valley in businesses that lack the underlying growth drivers. > only common denominator remaining is the underlying economic system If you ignore the corpus of counterfactuals I mentioned, sure. Blaming the entire economic system is a great way to stop marginal reforms. Perfect is the enemy of the good. (And in this case, it’s not perfection—it’s a utopia borne out of misreading the current economy as well as its history.)
• nine_k 3y ago
  But look. There is a product that can yield some money by dying. Having died, it clears the space it has been taking, so a new product can be marketed as a replacement. Under a certain angle, it's a win-win proposition!
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