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Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

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Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#111

Post by scarface74 »

pca006132 wrote: post #20
psi75 wrote: post #12

At this point, I only buy Apple products because of inertia. Give me an out-of-the-box Linux laptop that's as easy to use and that supports the software I need for my work, and give me a way to port over all of my cloud stuff, and I'm done with Apple forever. They're trading on the reputation they earned decades ago. This said, the problem isn't limited to one company. It's how capitalism works. In order to succeed,…

I think quite a lot of Windows laptop works fine with Linux nowadays? Perhaps not out-of-the-box, but they works fine after installing the OS manually (which doesn't really take much time TBH). I'm not sure what software you need for work, but if they are open source they are usually fine with Linux (iirc Mac exclusive projects usually have alternatives) . For cloud stuff, I don't know what you are using so can't rea…

As long as you don’t care about things like battery life, heat, or your laptop sounding like a 747 under load.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#112

Post by deltasevennine »

what-imright wrote: post #101

Stop trying to make hardware last forever. Who here would like to use hardware from 2017? iPhone x anyone? The lifetime of these devices is defined by the reasonable update schedule of the consumer, which is based on moores law. 5 years is a reasonable update schedule. Then put one in a museum and live in the now. You get this much time forget the nostalgia https://www.bryanbraun.com/your-life/months.html

I don't think you understand the extent of what's going on.

It's not that people are trying to make hardware last forever. It's that these devices are being deliberately designed to break down in a couple years. There are actual design decisions to force consumer behavior into purchasing new things every couple of years.

This doesn't just apply to things that follow moores law. Almost every product in existence nowadays is literally designed to break earlier then they usually do. Companies in certain cases actually spend more money creating a design that ensures that a product will break early so that consumers will buy a new thing within some years.

This includes cars, computers, phones, microwaves, lightbulbs. Etc.

Your personal need to buy a new car, new phone and new clothes is the result of market manipulation over the last 10 decades or so... morphing our culture from one where we kept tools around for years into one where we need to buy new things all the time. It was not like this at least 1 or 2 generations ago.

The result of this endless buying behavior is good for business and the economy but it has devastating effects on the environment and our resources.

Worth watching if you have 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE

The actual story of how companies colluded to make lightbulbs not last as long.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#113

Post by elcomet »

_adamb wrote: post #11

Pretty much anything engineered (buildings, bridges, electronics, houses, ...) have a death date. Any civil engineering projects I've been a part of have always had a quantified project lifetime. We _could_ build things that lasted hundreds of years, but the cost would be astronomically high and demand would change in that timeline. Opinion: People seem outraged at this with electronics but not the other products. Th…

It's simply because the dates are not disclosed to the buyers. On the contrary, for a bridge, the lifetime is very clear to everyone involved in the construction.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#114

Post by kazinator »

> But buying gear with batteries sealed inside is kind of like buying a car where you can’t change the tires. We just don’t realize we’re doing it, or how it’s contributing to our climate and sustainability crises.

Changing tires is better than throwing away a car whose tires are worn out, but it's not without impact. Tires don't recycle into anything useful; there are only so many bouncy playgrounds you can build from shredded tire rubber.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#115

Post by guerby »

deathanatos wrote: post #87

It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. Every converter that has failed has failed in exactly the same way: the plug/cord connection at the laptop end becomes unreliable. And every single one of them, across a range of manufacturers, has had the cord not be detachable from the brick. So what could ha…

Same experience here.

That's why my current laptop is a https://frame.work

- USB-C to USB-C adapters means that the part that will fail is changeable

- All four USB-C are able to charge the laptop.

And the power brick also has detachable USB-C AND power cord cable.

(And just for fun I ordered an upgrade to the motherboard, will use the old motherboard as always on PC in my home)

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#116

Post by deltasevennine »

This is called planned obsolescence, and it's not just electronics. Practically every product nowadays are designed with a death date to perpetuate a repeating buying cycle from consumers. It's very real.

To learn more here's an interesting short video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#117

Post by lucb1e »

scarface74 wrote: post #109
lucb1e wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But suppose I want... Like with GDPR where people imagined all sorts of situations ad absurdum (the grocer on the corner not being allowed to ask for your birthday anymore to give you a yearly free product or some such), these laws generally have exceptions for things where it makes sense. They aren't cooked up overnight in isolation and aren't the oneliner that you read online. I would expect that your mentioned e…

Yes because a 99 section 11 chapter law whose only affect is to make the web worse with cookie banners everywhere is a model of government effectiveness.

This is what I mean: apparently even tech people still don't know the basics of GDPR.

If it were common knowledge that cookie walls are not required for any normal website operation or statistics keeping, but only a thing required for invasive tracking, then any website introducing one would face questions and media attention rather than it being the norm. The law requires cookie walls exactly nowhere, it requires to ask for consent before doing something you have no valid reason for doing.

There are 5 defined valid reasons, including "it's in the subject's interest" and "it's in our legitimate interest" and stuff like that. O-n-l-y if you can't shove it under any of those, then you need to fall back to politely asking the subject you want to track. Every cookie wall is in this category. We really shouldn't be accepting this, but try educating half a billion people speaking thirty languages who have better things to do. It's not even well-known among the tech community, which continuously surprises me. Maybe we need to outlaw consent that is not part of a bigger contract (so a random website visit, not like research or so), maybe we need to have big website owners set better examples... I don't know.

But anyway I guess I was more interested in the new battery law rather than hosting my fourtieth hacker news gdpr misconceptions session, as I've not yet read the actual legal text of the former.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#118

Post by caconym_ »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #93
deathanatos wrote: post #87

It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. Every converter that has failed has failed in exactly the same way: the plug/cord connection at the laptop end becomes unreliable. And every single one of them, across a range of manufacturers, has had the cord not be detachable from the brick. So what could ha…

Recent Macs have cords that come in three parts: brick-to-plug, brick, brick-to-laptop. It’s one of my favorite changes in the newer MacBook models.

High power (~100W) charging with USB-C has been a game changer for me. I barely even remember the days when every electronic device came with its own grotty little power brick I had to keep track of and carry around with the device.

I guess time will tell how reliable USB-C connectors are, but my naive impression is that the female connectors (device side) are very simple with no springs or other moving parts. I imagine my nice USB-C chargers (mostly Apple) will be useful for as long as USB-C lasts as an active standard.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#119

Post by scarface74 »

lucb1e wrote: post #117
scarface74 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because a 99 section 11 chapter law whose only affect is to make the web worse with cookie banners everywhere is a model of government effectiveness.

This is what I mean: apparently even tech people still don't know the basics of GDPR. If it were common knowledge that cookie walls are not required for any normal website operation or statistics keeping, but only a thing required for invasive tracking, then any website introducing one would face questions and media attention rather than it being the norm. The law requires cookie walls exactly nowhere, it requires to…

Maybe it’s the fault of the EU for making the GDPR so complicated?

All a private company - Apple - had to do was create a 5 line rule change and add a setting to iOS and it the entire ad tracking industry including Facebook announced billions in losses.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#120

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

caconym_ wrote: post #118
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent Macs have cords that come in three parts: brick-to-plug, brick, brick-to-laptop. It’s one of my favorite changes in the newer MacBook models.

High power (~100W) charging with USB-C has been a game changer for me. I barely even remember the days when every electronic device came with its own grotty little power brick I had to keep track of and carry around with the device. I guess time will tell how reliable USB-C connectors are, but my naive impression is that the female connectors (device side) are very simple with no springs or other moving parts. I imag…

I’ve personally found usb-c ports aren’t great longevity wise. They have a similar issue as I had with micro-USB: they stop clamping onto the plug and then you don’t get a reliable connection. I’ve found Lightning ports more reliable (with periodic lint cleaning) but it’s a shame that it’s a proprietary standard.
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