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How Tech Companies Own Your Day

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11–20 of 27 posts

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#11

I would say Azure is one of Microsoft's core products at this point (and maybe Bing as well)

Everything with a monthly recurring subscription revenue stream is now the MS core product. Office365, etc. This is why windows 10 is effectively free to license, so you will see it on $85 tablets and ultra low cost PCs.

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#12

Who are these people that only work 3.8 hr per day and get 8.8 hr of sleep. I am lucky to get more than 5.5 hr of sleep and I work far more than 3.8 hr per day. Sounds like the average joe has it made. Oh where did I go wrong :-P

They're on Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14290518

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#13

Who are these people that only work 3.8 hr per day and get 8.8 hr of sleep. I am lucky to get more than 5.5 hr of sleep and I work far more than 3.8 hr per day. Sounds like the average joe has it made. Oh where did I go wrong :-P

I suspect that's an average of people who work full-time, people who work part-time, and people who don't work at all, such as unemployed, retirees, and children.

One of the big factors is actually weekends. 40hrs/7days = 5.7hrs/day.

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#14

Who are these people that only work 3.8 hr per day and get 8.8 hr of sleep. I am lucky to get more than 5.5 hr of sleep and I work far more than 3.8 hr per day. Sounds like the average joe has it made. Oh where did I go wrong :-P

Maybe they live near the families which have 2.5 children, but the article does cite its sources such as: https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables.htm

This is pretty clearly a case of the mean conveying little useful information. Children, elderly, and the unemployed skew the data way too much for the average to be a meaningful summary.

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#16
They could have written the title as "How smartphone using idiots let themselves be drawn into mobile addiction machines" but that would be too close to the truth and scare people off. For my 2c i think the reality is people want to avoid their issues instead of solving them, and that is a basic human trait. So they dive into tech solutions mobile and web and desktop for gratification, importance, friendship, and so on because some clever people figured out how to take advantage of human weaknesses and embed that in software.

Am i cynical? Not at all. I just observe people using systems and their inability to walk away with a sense of ease. Any habitual consumption is bad - only aware consumption is good, regardless of what you are consuming.

Now, if someone could just write an app that redirected every social media tool on the planet to the home page of HN we could at least start opening some minds.

Signed #grumpyoldhackerinasia

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#17
Imagine seeing an article titled "How furniture manufacturers own your day". It has graphs on how long on average you spend sitting on chairs from each company. How many companies make desks you use at work as well as beds you sleep on at night. How these companies make their products work better together so you have a chance of buying more, and then sell accessories on top of it. They even fight for your lunch and dinner time, providing dining tables and chairs and sometimes even utensils.

Probably sounds absurd, but that's essentially what this article is. Tech is as ubiquitous as furniture, perhaps even more for certain demographics, but for some reason there is a new article every day which sounds like the author looked around and was suddenly surprised to see everyone with smartphones and internet.

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#18
post #17

Imagine seeing an article titled "How furniture manufacturers own your day". It has graphs on how long on average you spend sitting on chairs from each company. How many companies make desks you use at work as well as beds you sleep on at night. How these companies make their products work better together so you have a chance of buying more, and then sell accessories on top of it. They even fight for your lunch and d…

Well, which is it? Is software "eating the world," or is it basically a small accoutrement to the world as it existed, the way an office chair is?

Re: How Tech Companies Own Your Day

#20
post #17

Imagine seeing an article titled "How furniture manufacturers own your day". It has graphs on how long on average you spend sitting on chairs from each company. How many companies make desks you use at work as well as beds you sleep on at night. How these companies make their products work better together so you have a chance of buying more, and then sell accessories on top of it. They even fight for your lunch and d…

Your analogy is so atrocious it's almost as if you do PR for Facebook. Furniture is passive and doesn't detract from wellbeing by absorbing a significant proportion of active attention.
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