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Is it? Key fobs probably cost dollars to manufacture. Voyager cost $865 million....in 1977. Maybe my key fob uses compute power wastefully. But I'd rather it c
by malfist 3y ago
Is it? Key fobs probably cost dollars to manufacture. Voyager cost $865 million....in 1977.
Maybe my key fob uses compute power wastefully. But I'd rather it cost a few dollars than everything that needs that amount of processing power costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
- detourdog 3y agoI don't think a key fob is a good example. I think if you look at what goes into word processing for the average office or almost any other office task would be my example. My point is that early on general purpose computing was needed to drive the cost of computing down. I think we are past that stage and it is now time to look at making everything as simple and efficient as possible.
- malfist 3y agoWhat does that gain you? I'd rather my stuff be inefficient, feature rich and cheap. Remember, your "simple" device is someone else's "missing critical features", your 80% isn't someone else's 80%. If I'm a manufacturer, why would I spend hundreds of engineering hours designing my widget to be efficient enough to run on an arduino when I can spend 50 cents more per widget and use an esp32 and not have to worry about investing so strongly in computational performance for computational performance's sake. If I'm a consumer, I care about the cost of the device, and the manufacturer spending hundreds of hours to make the software more efficient is almost always going to be more expensive than a different manufacturer that spent 50 cents more on hardware and much less on R&D.
- detourdog 3y agoEveryone has to have their own beliefs and values. Mine appear to be at the other end of the spectrum from yours. I would prefer less waste with more care and thought.