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Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla? Yes, many people find these touch screens annoying, and they’ll tend to buy cars with physical controls. But just like

by ggreer 3y ago

Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla? Yes, many people find these touch screens annoying, and they’ll tend to buy cars with physical controls. But just like people who prefer physical keyboards on their phones, these consumers are a vocal minority who aren’t big enough to cater to. If touch screens make cars less safe, then we should see higher liability insurance rates for such cars. So far that doesn’t seem to be the case.

kabes 3y ago
No but because so many people still buy tesla because they're cheap and despite the lack of controls, suits at other manufacturers think they now have to get rid of physical controls as well.
devsda 3y ago
> Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla? The same argument can be made about other products too but it only distracts from the real problem. Bad practises and products do stick around regardless of their actual usefulness and benefits. For example take headphone jack. Nobody forced anyone to buy an Apple phone without a headphone jack, yet it is a challenge now to find a good premium/mid-range phone with a headphone jack. Other OEMs are simply copying Apple and people too get along with the new trend. The same is happening with touch controls too. Once a popular desirable brand introduces an (anti)feature, its competitors misunderstand the feature as a contributing factor for its desirability and blindly copy it without getting into actual merits.
- ggreer 3y ago
  You overestimate how much people want headphone jacks. Most people today use Bluetooth headphones and don’t miss their headphone jacks at all. I honestly forgot that my phone lacked a headphone jack until you pointed it out. That is how little I use wired headphones. Moreover, why would every manufacturer copy a design that consumers don’t want? If the feature is so widely desired, it would only take one manufacturer not removing the headphone jack to win market share. Your model of the world requires every manufacturer to be incompetent in the same way. A much simpler explanation is that phones are a very competitive market and the manufacturers have calculated that, like physical keyboards, headphone jacks are not a feature most people care about. They prefer the headphone jack be sacrificed for better water resistance, better battery life, and lower cost.

by ggreer 3y ago

kabes 3y ago

No but because so many people still buy tesla because they're cheap and despite the lack of controls, suits at other manufacturers think they now have to get rid of physical controls as well.

devsda 3y ago

> Is someone forcing you to drive a Tesla? The same argument can be made about other products too but it only distracts from the real problem. Bad practises and products do stick around regardless of their actual usefulness and benefits. For example take headphone jack. Nobody forced anyone to buy an Apple phone without a headphone jack, yet it is a challenge now to find a good premium/mid-range phone with a headphone jack. Other OEMs are simply copying Apple and people too get along with the new trend. The same is happening with touch controls too. Once a popular desirable brand introduces an (anti)feature, its competitors misunderstand the feature as a contributing factor for its desirability and blindly copy it without getting into actual merits.

ggreer 3y ago
You overestimate how much people want headphone jacks. Most people today use Bluetooth headphones and don’t miss their headphone jacks at all. I honestly forgot that my phone lacked a headphone jack until you pointed it out. That is how little I use wired headphones. Moreover, why would every manufacturer copy a design that consumers don’t want? If the feature is so widely desired, it would only take one manufacturer not removing the headphone jack to win market share. Your model of the world requires every manufacturer to be incompetent in the same way. A much simpler explanation is that phones are a very competitive market and the manufacturers have calculated that, like physical keyboards, headphone jacks are not a feature most people care about. They prefer the headphone jack be sacrificed for better water resistance, better battery life, and lower cost.