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Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

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Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#511

Post by silon42 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #477
silon42 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same with my Samsungs... no internet/network. But in the new one, I can't even use it in a private LAN (for DLNA, ...)... without connecting online. Doesn't bother me too much (HDMI from PC is superior anyway), but it would be interesting to have a solution for occasional uses (like streaming from laptop, maybe phone).

Any TV that won't work offline I'd consider defective and I'd send it back.

It works, until I attempt to use "network" when it asks me to register online. Haven't done it, if it was mandatory it would go back as non-functional... Not sure what problems occur if you do it once but then disconnect from internet.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#512

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

rglullis wrote: post #460
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a much bigger issue than just TVs. You start somewhere > And you seem to have ignored my entire final paragraph which culminated in >> sadly, it seems a lot of people either don't care enough to do that instead of moaning on Twitter of Facebook and then accepting their fate. which is you accepting your fate, it seems. You suggested nothing useful, only moaned that others couldn't be bothered. In summary you…

You are getting "results" in a Sisyphean task. The one you are responding to is talking about the larger issue. Sure, do exercise your right as a consumer and do more than just complaining. If I ever bought something that started performing this badly I would return it as well. Problem is, what do you trade it for? I'd like to find a 50" TV with no smart TV features. Will your complaining and nagging on review sites…

Sisyphus didn't get results, that was the point of his fate. I get results.

OK, nitpick over, I have trouble disagreeing with you. Let's try to answer that.

> what do you trade it for?

Perhaps if companies had to deal with a load of complaints, losing cash at each one, they might start to care? I can tell you that companies hate being embarrassed in public so complain loudly.

But otherwise, on another hn thread a while ago some guy said he'd bought, or would buy, a dumb monitor and link that up.

There's 2 solutions (if the latter works). Don't complain they don't solve everything instantly, they won't.

> Will your complaining and nagging on review sites going to make this a reality?

You'll never know if you don't try.

> This is what makes GP feel powerless.

I know the feeling! But I keep fighting back and I get results. Read that as you will.

Many of you US guys died to separate yourselves from the rule of us brits. Now for domestic goods you can't be bothered to rage. Doesn't seem right...

Like your post though!

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#513

Post by crpatino »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #257
darkwater wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware that I will sound condescending but... that's exactly why people "invented" opensource (and/or free software if you prefer). I'm sorry for your problem nonetheless.

You mean opensource has the same problem with updates, but you can always fork (which helps indeed).

We are talking orthogonal problems here.

Closed Source software prevents users from having an "out" if the product they used to rely on stops serving their best interests.

Automatic Updates do push potentially detrimental changes into critical infrastructure of your customers with no notice. No amount of open source can fix that, because the "no notice" part of it precludes you from forking the project in any time frame that would allow you to respond to the crisis...

No cancel that, and aggressive upgrade policy from any critical piece of open source software should incentivize rational agents to preemptively fork the project in order to address the upgrade risk. The fact that you do not see this happening every day talks of the percentage of rational agents in the environment.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#514

Post by javier10e6 »

Hey MS I am scheduling an upgrade for some of your cloud services sometimes next week. Expect some slow down in your data centers throughput across several regions in the US and whatever happens, dont reboot the servers. How that feels eh?

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#515

Post by celsoazevedo »

EricE wrote: post #490
oblio wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally linked an article that says they've had to settle for half a billion (!) because Apple did this without informing the users they were doing it. And Apple had an obvious financial incentive to not mention it to users. People found out almost by accident that their phones were still working well, except for a part that is replaceable (and much cheaper than a new phone). In what world is this not a valid exa…

So you'd rather the phone die and be unusable rather than slow and useable? Apple's only mistake was not proving the opportunity for people to choose from the start.

Mistake? They made the decision to slow down devices without telling users and profited from that decision.

My iPhone 5 became slower after 1-2 years. If the battery was bad, I never noticed it (no shutdowns or anything like that). It coincided with a new iPhone and iOS version... I tried every trick, from formatting the phone to reducing animations. Then I found a thread on Apple forums about this and someone was suggesting getting a new phone!

I did buy a new phone (OnePlus One) and it's still working after ~5 years. The battery doesn't last as long, but it doesn't die when I receive a call or play a game.

Because of this, that iPhone 5 was my first and last iPhone.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#516

Post by kanox »

The whole point of software is that it "soft" and thus easy to change. Upgrades are whole point and not optional.

The logical conclusion is that any and all software should follow and evergreen/rolling release model in order to take maximum advantage of the flexibility built into the medium.

Commercial software should all be subscription-based. Even software which is packaged as fixed releases has to support routing updates in order to deal with security issue.

The problem of "excessive involuntary updates" is much smaller than the problem of devices which are not kept up to date by their manufacturers. Cheap mobile phones are among the worst offenders.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#517

Post by lostmyoldone »

shawnz wrote: post #205
fiblye wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years ago, I found some software updates annoying. 5 years ago, I found most of them aggravating. Now, I find them to be outright harmful except for rare cases. It's very common for (particularly mobile software) to just break the product entirely. Features I regularly used and depended on--sometimes even the main features--are just deleted. Gone, with zero chance of using it again. Sometimes ads are thrown in, ad…

Can you give me an example of the last time you faced a harmful, work-destroying update? Because that hasn't occurred to me in any product for years, and I always install manufacturer updates the day they are released.

Apple decided that /anaconda was an illegal place to store files during an update, so not only did I have a mysterious upgrade who took a very long time (hours) even on SSD, I also lost half a day when I needed to run some calculations for my client, as my Anaconda (python data science etc) was broken. The latter happened just the other week.

A few years ago, Windows mistook my root/system partition for the boot partition, which it helpfully "cleaned" by removing ALL executable files. Don't remember the trigger for that one.

Another Mac OS X update broke my Samsung color laser + scanner. A few years ago, still broken. Recently the scanner was broken by another update. At first it was only the printer.

I'm sure there are more, but thos were the first I could recall.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#518

Post by MaxBarraclough »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #510
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're BSD-licensed, that means they're Free Software.

Nobody said it isn't. You misunderstood the discussion here. I quoted "In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero." hutzlibu said the same problem affects all software, not just non-Free software. In a constantly changing computing environment, even free software is affected. Nevertheless, hutzlibu was in agreement with the "spirit" of the quote, because at least the user still controls the…

Right, gotcha.

> Why is my parent post downvoted? There's really no disagreement here.

I appreciate it, but even if I'd disagreed, that's no reason to downvote.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#519

Post by rglullis »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #512
rglullis wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting "results" in a Sisyphean task. The one you are responding to is talking about the larger issue. Sure, do exercise your right as a consumer and do more than just complaining. If I ever bought something that started performing this badly I would return it as well. Problem is, what do you trade it for? I'd like to find a 50" TV with no smart TV features. Will your complaining and nagging on review sites…

Sisyphus didn't get results, that was the point of his fate. I get results. OK, nitpick over, I have trouble disagreeing with you. Let's try to answer that. > what do you trade it for? Perhaps if companies had to deal with a load of complaints, losing cash at each one, they might start to care? I can tell you that companies hate being embarrassed in public so complain loudly. But otherwise, on another hn thread a whi…

> I get results.

For a very low bar of "results", sure. But unless you are getting electronics with special features or without artificial restrictions imposed by the companies, I wouldn't count I managed to return a shitty TV that got shittier for another baseline shitty TV as "getting results".

> Perhaps if companies had to deal with a load of complaints, losing cash at each one, they might start to care?

They won't "lose cash". If consumers on aggregate started demanding more quality and better support from their companies, it would translate into increased costs and consequently increased prices. Business as a whole can sustain the occasional annoying customer like you, but only when you are the exception and not the rule.

> But otherwise, on another hn thread a while ago some guy said he'd bought, or would buy, a dumb monitor and link that up.

Find the price of a 40"+ monitor that can do 4k and compare with the price of TVs, see how even high-end TVs cost less than the monitors. As an exercise to the reader, correlate that with the point above.

> You'll never know if you don't try.

I won't know because I don't want to know. I simply refuse to buy the shitty crippled electronics in the first place.

> Many of you US guys

I'm not American, but I lived there long enough to understand that most people live by the "Give me convenience or give me death" mentality. I also lived there long enough to realize that money is the only thing they understand. Put these two together, and it gets really hard to expect the average consumer to work to get anything better when they have something convenient for cheap.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#520

Post by verall »

Fnoord wrote: post #373
pmontra wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a LG smart TV. Wary of those and other problems I never connected it to the net. I bought it because it cost only 50 Euros more than the dumb model and the display looked much better, which should be the main point of a TV. If I really want to do smart things with my TV I attach something I control to one of its HDMI ports (phone, tablet, laptop, Raspberry.) I'm not thrilled about the idea of TV sets with an em…

I needed an all-in-one solution for streaming (Netflix, Prime, Spotify, Jellyfin, ...) so I went with an Nvidia Shield Pro on the HDMI port. Any smart TV is a dumb TV for me. I'll make it "smart" myself, the old fashioned way, as you described. One downside of HDMI is max 60 FPS, so its limited for gaming and OKish for interactive (such as navigation through menu or simple browsing) yet should be adequate for any vie…

The shield will happily push 4K@120hz at 4:2:0 subsampling if your display supports it. The shield supports hdmi 2.0b.
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