4 ms·

Let’s start simple: what about, like, any modern electronic device that can be serviced and doesn’t stop working whenever the manufacturer decides from a distan

Let’s start simple: what about, like, any modern electronic device that can be serviced and doesn’t stop working whenever the manufacturer decides from a distance? I would enjoy not having to buy a new phone every other year just so my apps keep fucking working.

hilux 2y ago
Star Trek shows me lots of devices we'd like. What's your evidence that the device you want EXISTS TODAY (or could exist, given existing technology), but Apple and Google or whoever are gatekeeping it? E.g. do you think Apple could have released the iPhone 15, 14, 13, etc. in 2007, but held back because Steve Jobs was counting his billions? Also, maybe you intended "every other year" as a figure of speech, but I buy an iPhone only every four or five years, and my last one was free (to me) with a "commitment" to the very affordable carrier plan I already had. I do occasionally need to replace the battery, but if better battery tech exists, I have not heard about it. Are the Chinese and Koreans complicit in this gatekeeping? Last but not least, do you work in the tech industry? I used to work for a well-known chip manufacturer, and if we were gatekeeping our chip releases to increase future profits, I certainly didn't hear about it. That reminds me - a key feature of capitalism is COMPETITION. If someone is holding back on building magic devices, the field is open for someone else, maybe you, to profitably build them.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Assuming a level playing field. If I have good cash flow from my operating system and office software business, I can make a web browser, and give it away for free, which screws up the market for companies that sell web browser software. no one can compete with that price so a company that only makes web browser software gets screwed. Until such time that a different company with a monopoly in another area is able to fund development of a competing browser which they can give away for free, the market for web browser software was and it's dominated by one free option to the next. Point being, free markets and competition is great, but there isn't always going to be competition because the game is fixed.
  - hilux 2y ago
    The question was about (hardware) "devices," which tend to be limited by chip technology, not browsers. Are you suggesting that Arm and AMD and Apple and Huawei and Intel and Nvidia and Samsung are all colluding to stay at roughly the same level of chip technology - when they could easily be generations ahead?
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Ask Sun, DEC, and Cray about that. Worse but better wins for business reasons that aren't related the quality of the underlying technology. I'm not saying they're colluding, or that there's some grand conspiracy, but because Apple has bought out the production lines at TSMC to make their Apple Silicon chips, Samsung can't use those lines which means comparing products from the two isn't fair because Apple has those lines and Samsung can't use them to produce chips for their phones. I'm saying we, the human race, could be further along, if we made the markets more of a fair fight. Microsoft's OEM agreement, which came to light in 1998, was that a manufacturer, say Dell, had to pay Microsoft for every computer they sold, regardless of if it had Windows on it or not. This means, that if Dell sold a computer with BeOS on it, they still had to pay for a Microsoft Windows license for that box! From a business perspective, that means Dell doesn't need to bother selling BeOS. Business hasn't changed, so even though Arm and AMD and Apple and Huawei and Intel and Nvidia and Samsung haven't been taken to court on an antitrust case, there's all sorts of anti-competitive behavior going on. I can't buy a Samsung phone with an Apple A17 chip as the CPU. I think if the market were better regulated, I would be able to, but because we don't prohibit that kind of vertical integration, the result is an anti competitive market, and that's holding us back. We couldn't easily be generations ahead, because it's a lot of hard work, fighting lots of powerful people, but we could be.
      - hilux 2y ago
        I used to work for Sun. As for Cray, did you know that Cray used AMD chips on many of their supercomputers? I bet you didn't. As for the rest of it, you think that forcing arch rivals to collaborate on their key products, in other words, reducing competition, is the best way to help the consumer? Good luck in your Marxist-Leninist fantasy world.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
  You make it seem I’m talking about sci-fi technology. I’m talking about not intentionally crippling the product to force upgrades (easily replace batteries, backwards compatible software). It’s not rocket science and we had it before.
jdietrich 2y ago
https://www.fairphone.com https://www.fairphone.com

hilux 2y ago

Star Trek shows me lots of devices we'd like. What's your evidence that the device you want EXISTS TODAY (or could exist, given existing technology), but Apple and Google or whoever are gatekeeping it? E.g. do you think Apple could have released the iPhone 15, 14, 13, etc. in 2007, but held back because Steve Jobs was counting his billions? Also, maybe you intended "every other year" as a figure of speech, but I buy an iPhone only every four or five years, and my last one was free (to me) with a "commitment" to the very affordable carrier plan I already had. I do occasionally need to replace the battery, but if better battery tech exists, I have not heard about it. Are the Chinese and Koreans complicit in this gatekeeping? Last but not least, do you work in the tech industry? I used to work for a well-known chip manufacturer, and if we were gatekeeping our chip releases to increase future profits, I certainly didn't hear about it. That reminds me - a key feature of capitalism is COMPETITION. If someone is holding back on building magic devices, the field is open for someone else, maybe you, to profitably build them.

fragmede 2y ago
Assuming a level playing field. If I have good cash flow from my operating system and office software business, I can make a web browser, and give it away for free, which screws up the market for companies that sell web browser software. no one can compete with that price so a company that only makes web browser software gets screwed. Until such time that a different company with a monopoly in another area is able to fund development of a competing browser which they can give away for free, the market for web browser software was and it's dominated by one free option to the next. Point being, free markets and competition is great, but there isn't always going to be competition because the game is fixed.
- hilux 2y ago
  The question was about (hardware) "devices," which tend to be limited by chip technology, not browsers. Are you suggesting that Arm and AMD and Apple and Huawei and Intel and Nvidia and Samsung are all colluding to stay at roughly the same level of chip technology - when they could easily be generations ahead?
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Ask Sun, DEC, and Cray about that. Worse but better wins for business reasons that aren't related the quality of the underlying technology. I'm not saying they're colluding, or that there's some grand conspiracy, but because Apple has bought out the production lines at TSMC to make their Apple Silicon chips, Samsung can't use those lines which means comparing products from the two isn't fair because Apple has those lines and Samsung can't use them to produce chips for their phones. I'm saying we, the human race, could be further along, if we made the markets more of a fair fight. Microsoft's OEM agreement, which came to light in 1998, was that a manufacturer, say Dell, had to pay Microsoft for every computer they sold, regardless of if it had Windows on it or not. This means, that if Dell sold a computer with BeOS on it, they still had to pay for a Microsoft Windows license for that box! From a business perspective, that means Dell doesn't need to bother selling BeOS. Business hasn't changed, so even though Arm and AMD and Apple and Huawei and Intel and Nvidia and Samsung haven't been taken to court on an antitrust case, there's all sorts of anti-competitive behavior going on. I can't buy a Samsung phone with an Apple A17 chip as the CPU. I think if the market were better regulated, I would be able to, but because we don't prohibit that kind of vertical integration, the result is an anti competitive market, and that's holding us back. We couldn't easily be generations ahead, because it's a lot of hard work, fighting lots of powerful people, but we could be.
    - hilux 2y ago
      I used to work for Sun. As for Cray, did you know that Cray used AMD chips on many of their supercomputers? I bet you didn't. As for the rest of it, you think that forcing arch rivals to collaborate on their key products, in other words, reducing competition, is the best way to help the consumer? Good luck in your Marxist-Leninist fantasy world.
hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
You make it seem I’m talking about sci-fi technology. I’m talking about not intentionally crippling the product to force upgrades (easily replace batteries, backwards compatible software). It’s not rocket science and we had it before.

jdietrich 2y ago

https://www.fairphone.com https://www.fairphone.com