21–30 of 127 posts
Since beginning of 2025 big corps turned to be each time more anti consumer. They feel quite comfortable. I wonder what happened for them to feel like that.
Since beginning of 2025 big corps turned to be each time more anti consumer. They feel quite comfortable. I wonder what happened for them to feel like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any actual evidence to backup this claim?
Are you serious? Only in the last week we have Sony deleting paid-for movies. That is pretty anti-consumer. I realize all of this is empirical, but the term enshitification just didn’t form out of thin air.
Feels like we've been on the same train for over a decade.
Since beginning of 2025 big corps turned to be each time more anti consumer. They feel quite comfortable. I wonder what happened for them to feel like that.
I suggest you to study the birth of consumer protection laws on the beginning of the 20th century, such as the birth of the FTC in 1914. It was a time when milk and beer were routinely adulterated, most meat was contaminated and all sorts of cartels did price fixing [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_o...
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In what way are watches with SIMs (or eSIMs) not just tiny cell phones? Or is you meaning that the modern smartphone is itself a “pile of hacks sitting on top of hacks”?
The main way is that literally zero of these watches actually meet the standards that the cell networks require of a cell phone. Every single one of them has a carrier exemption or a lower standard to adhere to, because it turns out that putting a cell phone's RF package into a watch is super hard, both because of size and the various negative effects of the human body on radio signals. This affects cell phones too o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what way are watches with SIMs (or eSIMs) not just tiny cell phones? Or is you meaning that the modern smartphone is itself a “pile of hacks sitting on top of hacks”?
The main way is that literally zero of these watches actually meet the standards that the cell networks require of a cell phone. Every single one of them has a carrier exemption or a lower standard to adhere to, because it turns out that putting a cell phone's RF package into a watch is super hard, both because of size and the various negative effects of the human body on radio signals. This affects cell phones too o…
I then started regularly receiving phone calls (to my iPhone) intended for someone else. At first I thought it was a wrong number or an old number and kept telling them to remove this number. Buy the calls kept coming and I eventually I dared to ask what number they had dialed. And it wasn't a cell number I recognised.
After contacting support for my carrier, what I figured out was that the Apple Watch eSIM has its own phone number, for some reason, but it's not one you're supposed to know about; as an extension of your phone's subscription, the Apple Watch eSIM notionally has the same number as it. But they were calling the secret number associated with the eSIM, somehow. And I think there was a problem in the number routing table somewhere, because I think this number may have been in use with another cell carrier, and the calls only went to me when calling from my network?
Absurd nightmare situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main way is that literally zero of these watches actually meet the standards that the cell networks require of a cell phone. Every single one of them has a carrier exemption or a lower standard to adhere to, because it turns out that putting a cell phone's RF package into a watch is super hard, both because of size and the various negative effects of the human body on radio signals. This affects cell phones too o…
What do you mean by "carrier exception"? Exception from policies those same carriers set up decades ago?
Cell phone enabled watches are a pile of hacks sitting on top of hacks on top of a system pretending to be a telephone switch board from the 1940s. It’s surprising any of it works.
I just went through this yesterday. My wife and I both have Apple Watches with LTE and I was rolling them over: both phones and my watch ported easily but the second watch wouldn’t show up on the account at all with no explanation. The first support person couldn’t see a problem with the details they were able to see, the second level one could see a fraud hold for non-specific reasons and forwarded us to a fraud tea…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main way is that literally zero of these watches actually meet the standards that the cell networks require of a cell phone. Every single one of them has a carrier exemption or a lower standard to adhere to, because it turns out that putting a cell phone's RF package into a watch is super hard, both because of size and the various negative effects of the human body on radio signals. This affects cell phones too o…
A few years ago, I signed up for an Apple Watch eSIM plan (which is a special type of eSIM plan that Apple make cell carriers agree to offer as an add-on to a normal cell subscription for your iPhone, and there is no other way go get an eSIM for it). I then started regularly receiving phone calls (to my iPhone) intended for someone else. At first I thought it was a wrong number or an old number and kept telling them…
Surprises you didn't give that secret number out - could have been fun for yourself (or your close friends or family) to be able to call direct.
I wonder if you could even use it for texts or notifications that only go to the watch ?