4 ms·

If there were an almost FOSS personal electronics company that made quality, durable, and repairable devices with clean UX, usability, and long term OS-app comp

If there were an almost FOSS personal electronics company that made quality, durable, and repairable devices with clean UX, usability, and long term OS-app compatibility, these would have a wider audience than simply infinitely-upgradeable laptops or laptops that are designed to be vintaged every 7 years. Call me a socialist, but designed to break just after the warranty and planned obsolescence are scourges resulting in higher profits, but suck for the customer, lose goodwill, and are fundamentally uncool for what they do to the planet. It is more ethical and respectable to craft excellent things that are "too durable" that people will treasure for many years because it's better than creating overpriced, pretty, fragile, incompatible e-waste. Similarly, an "Apple for datacenters" like Oxide but larger scale (by the rack as a demo and intermodal container-scale customarily) with integrated, observable, resilient, multi-tenant {bare metal, I, k8s, P, GPU, network, storage}aaS.

user_7832 2y ago
Right now Framework (and System76 if I got the name right) are the best options available.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Absolutely no argument for people who can/will tinker and want a more extreme approximation of a beige box DIY PC in a laptop form-factor. I'm saying for the wider non-tinker market there's an opportunity for a better way for people who want what sort-of what Apple was under SJ but more like old-school Japanese products that are absolutely better without optimizing for money extraction and are instead optimizing for better products without compromise. I can't even get Apple TV 4K to work as an external display half the time and most of their apps are barely functional, and Apple keeps churning framework APIs over and over again like their product managers all came from US defense contractors.
  - TobTobXX 2y ago
    Don't need to be a tinkerer for a Framework Laptop. You can order it prebuilt with Windows 10. It does cost a fair bit more compared to the unmaintainable Laptops though. But so do Apple products.
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      Costing a lot reduces demand. Framework isn't at all what I'm talking about, so you can stop trying to sell me on it. ;)
nebula8804 2y ago
>Call me a socialist, but designed to break just after the warranty and planned obsolescence are scourges resulting in higher profits, but suck for the customer, lose goodwill, and are fundamentally uncool for what they do to the planet. Do most computers "break" just after the warranty or people just desire something newer or faster because of the shifting landscape of software and the web? >It is more ethical and respectable to craft excellent things that are "too durable" that people will treasure for many years because it's better than creating overpriced, pretty, fragile, incompatible e-waste. How do you care to make this paradigm compatible with the ever changing nature of software? Software which is made by others who dont share the same values as you do? Because without that, these "excellently crafted" items will just take up space and provide little to no value. I restore "vintage computers" for fun and I am finding it to be a waste of time because the value proposition for most old computers tends towards 0 for most people. The purpose of a computer is to run software period. Without software, the computer is an ornament made of various metals. The only hold outs are computers that have a specific characteristic to them that provides value. Things such as the ability to run software new computers struggle with(pre Win XP machines with ISA sound cards, SUN SPARC machines), a visual component(SGI Computers), or just a specific historic nature(NEXT Cube, a lot of the 90s, early 00s Apple computers). The majority of computers from the last 10-15 years don't add any of that value, and thus will eventually only have scrap value. This is different from old well crafted furniture. Those items in a way can still run modern "software". (Humans born in 2024 can sit in them and enjoy them the same way humans born in 1960). This thinking applies to many other well crafted items. Their value proposition is different. In a way the tech industry has really pulled the wool over peoples eyes. Convincing people that this tech is "essential" to modern day life because of "efficiency" or the faster moving nature of the world or whatever else has locked in this disposable reality. The only move if you wish to follow your ideology is to not play and accept the consequences.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Have you bought a (Samsung) refrigerator lately?
  - nebula8804 2y ago

user_7832 2y ago

Right now Framework (and System76 if I got the name right) are the best options available.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Absolutely no argument for people who can/will tinker and want a more extreme approximation of a beige box DIY PC in a laptop form-factor. I'm saying for the wider non-tinker market there's an opportunity for a better way for people who want what sort-of what Apple was under SJ but more like old-school Japanese products that are absolutely better without optimizing for money extraction and are instead optimizing for better products without compromise. I can't even get Apple TV 4K to work as an external display half the time and most of their apps are barely functional, and Apple keeps churning framework APIs over and over again like their product managers all came from US defense contractors.
- TobTobXX 2y ago
  Don't need to be a tinkerer for a Framework Laptop. You can order it prebuilt with Windows 10. It does cost a fair bit more compared to the unmaintainable Laptops though. But so do Apple products.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Costing a lot reduces demand. Framework isn't at all what I'm talking about, so you can stop trying to sell me on it. ;)

nebula8804 2y ago

>Call me a socialist, but designed to break just after the warranty and planned obsolescence are scourges resulting in higher profits, but suck for the customer, lose goodwill, and are fundamentally uncool for what they do to the planet. Do most computers "break" just after the warranty or people just desire something newer or faster because of the shifting landscape of software and the web? >It is more ethical and respectable to craft excellent things that are "too durable" that people will treasure for many years because it's better than creating overpriced, pretty, fragile, incompatible e-waste. How do you care to make this paradigm compatible with the ever changing nature of software? Software which is made by others who dont share the same values as you do? Because without that, these "excellently crafted" items will just take up space and provide little to no value. I restore "vintage computers" for fun and I am finding it to be a waste of time because the value proposition for most old computers tends towards 0 for most people. The purpose of a computer is to run software period. Without software, the computer is an ornament made of various metals. The only hold outs are computers that have a specific characteristic to them that provides value. Things such as the ability to run software new computers struggle with(pre Win XP machines with ISA sound cards, SUN SPARC machines), a visual component(SGI Computers), or just a specific historic nature(NEXT Cube, a lot of the 90s, early 00s Apple computers). The majority of computers from the last 10-15 years don't add any of that value, and thus will eventually only have scrap value. This is different from old well crafted furniture. Those items in a way can still run modern "software". (Humans born in 2024 can sit in them and enjoy them the same way humans born in 1960). This thinking applies to many other well crafted items. Their value proposition is different. In a way the tech industry has really pulled the wool over peoples eyes. Convincing people that this tech is "essential" to modern day life because of "efficiency" or the faster moving nature of the world or whatever else has locked in this disposable reality. The only move if you wish to follow your ideology is to not play and accept the consequences.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Have you bought a (Samsung) refrigerator lately?
- nebula8804 2y ago