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Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

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Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#101

Post by stickfigure »

falcolas wrote: post #80
stickfigure wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a disaster-prone (wildfire) area. I'll take cellphones over landlines every single time . 1) In the event of a major disaster, you've probably evacuated. You can't take your landline with you. 2) Telephone poles burn. 3) Even if the cellular system is completely hosed, you might still be able to get on a data network. All you need is crappy wifi anywhere (cafe, hotel, friend) and you can get an email out.

I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure why there's so much hate for reliable technologies like landlines. All I can guess is that they stole someone's lunch money. Or people feel the need to justify their cellphone purchases by coming up with specious arguments against the "competition". 1) Not all disasters can be evacuated away from. Tornadoes, for example. 2) So do power poles. And those telephone poles are also p…

1) How's landline infrastructure going to hold up to tornadoes?

2) Yes, power goes out too. Cellphones have batteries.

3) Yes, you can dial 911 via "wifi calling". I've done it.

I don't know about "hate" but I do think landlines are overrated. You already have a cellphone. Paying for an extra service and apparatus for the tiny possibility that you need to call 911 when your cellphone can't - why? Who else are you going to call? Do you even know their phone numbers without your cellphone?

I also think you're undervaluing cellphones by assuming they only talk on the cellular network. You just need to get on a data network somewhere and you suddenly have a wide variety of communication options, including phone calls. TCP/IP was designed to withstand nuclear war.

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#102

Post by astrange »

boznz wrote: post #44
styfle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games that didn’t need software updates :)

OTA Updates negates proper testing. Read this as good or bad but most everything is working this way now.

It’s very important to still test them otherwise you might break the update mechanism!

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#103

Post by nalekberov »

jjk166 wrote: post #42
nalekberov wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i have bought some nintendo games a year or two ago, some of them received 0 update, still operate as a charm, without any (at least noticeable) bug.

Survivor bias: the games people fondly remember and want to go back and play decades later are generally the ones with few if any problems. The buggy crap got purchased by an unlucky few and then was quickly abandoned and forgotten. It's also why classic music, books, movies, etc are great - decades of pruning leaving a short list of best-ofs.

I was talking about the ones for Nintendo Switch. And they are pretty much complex games.

Back in 90's in order to survive game producers had to have sense of quality and knowledge of definition of "finished".

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#104

Post by toast0 »

CountSessine wrote: post #36
goodside wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overlooking the "on their own" part. The OP isn't lamenting that things are less reliable in general, just that they aren't reliably capable of working offline or on a local network. Phones are maybe an odd example, but it's somewhat true: Traditional phone systems let you make local calls even if long-distance lines fail, or within a building without leaking data externally. Very few people would ever…

I don't think I've ever heard a fast-busy signal from my cell phone, even once. But it happened lots with landlines when too many people were making local telephone calls. Circuit switched networks kind of suck in a lot of ways. I don't think I would say traditional phone systems were as reliable as modern telephone and data systems.

Yeah, I don't think cell phones do fast-busy. They just timeout dialing without a carrier driven noise (mine have usually made the boop-boop noise like when the other party hangs up). Of course, with a cell phone, you can never tell if it's the network is busy or the tower is out of range, or the tower is broken. With a landline, you can tell if the line is dead (totally disconnected), really broken (voltage on the line, but no dialtone), or just pretty overloaded (dial tone, but fast busy for all numbers). And, if you made a habit of calling very busy numbers (like Netzero dial-ups), you could learn the tricks to get better priority; dialing the first N-1 digits, waiting a few seconds, and then the final digit would get me a waiting modem way better than just auto-redial on busy.

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#105

Post by toast0 »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #29
styfle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games that didn’t need software updates :)

I imagine people would love a original PacMan update that solves the overflow issue

How does fixing that bug get more quarters into the machine? :)

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#106

Post by mti27 »

In the author's specific example, the answer is everybody wants one of those cool security cameras, but no one wants to invest the time to learn some simple networking skills, such as using a router UI to find/assign an IP address... You can create a very nice system using a software package like Blue Iris so that your security cameras function with or without Internet access.

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#107

Post by CountSessine »

falcolas wrote: post #61
CountSessine wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever heard a fast-busy signal from my cell phone, even once. But it happened lots with landlines when too many people were making local telephone calls. Circuit switched networks kind of suck in a lot of ways. I don't think I would say traditional phone systems were as reliable as modern telephone and data systems.

Wait for a disaster to happen in your area - a time when you'll want your cellphone the most. At which point your cellphone will be... well, a good camera. And personally, as someone who grew up in the 80's, let me offer up a counter-anecdote: I don't ever recall hearing a "fast-busy tone". There was never a time we couldn't use our land line (at least until we had a modem, that is).

I grew up in the 80's too. What you say is very very dependent on your service area. I have fantastic coverage where I live, but I live in a big city. I've never had a problem with initiating a call on my mobile. It's likely my operator has done a better job of pico-celling my area than yours has. You might consider switching.

I got fast busy tones several times a year back in the 80's, and it usually corresponded to whenever a concert was announced. Maybe my phone company back then was as bad as your mobile services company is now?

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#108

Post by FpUser »

disport wrote: post #10

Another way to rephrase the question is: why don't networked devices require signoff from a professionally licensed engineer on its specific software implementation before it goes to market? You see "forethought" in devices offered to the public when regulation DEMANDS it: think cars, bridges, medical devices, because (or so it's been rationalized), the public needs accountability (a named, professionally licensed, b…

Software development is one of few areas where a simple folk with little money can start something great and make big bucks. Implementing your proposal on a global would kill it all and whole lot of innovation with it.

As they say "live and let live". We already have this control where it is needed. Leave the rest to manage their own affairs.

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#109

Post by stickfigure »

falcolas wrote: post #71
stickfigure wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement is also false. I have a Nest thermostat. It works fine without the network. I have a modern car. It works fine without the internet. Several of my friends have Teslas. They work fine offgrid. It's just nonsense. Stop defending it.

Wasn't there recently a story of a Lamborghini which wouldn't start because it didn't have a cell signal (it was in an underground garage)? Some sensor had been tripped, which made the car require network validation before it would start back up. And don't Nest thermostats occasionally have an issue where they default back to somewhere in the 60° range due to a server connectivity issue? https://support.google.com/go…

As noted in the HN thread, the Ferrari was disabled due to an anti-theft device and couldn't be unlocked remotely due to connectivity. Lack of connectivity is not responsible for the car being disabled; an attempted "theft" (from the device's perspective) was, and a stuck car is exactly what the owner asked for.

Even if there have been a few historical software bugs that caused some Nests to change temperature, it did not "become completely unresponsive in the middle of winter". Worst case is you walk up to the device and turn the temperature back up. Also, there's nothing in that bug report that suggests it has anything to do with internet connectivity.

A quick google search shows plenty of people getting locked in non-internet-connected cars.

The modern world is complex. Even before I replaced my thermostat with a Nest, my furnace was already way more fragile than my fireplace.

Re: Why are new devices dependent on the Internet but made with little forethought?

#110

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

stickfigure wrote: post #4

I stopped reading at Try to recall a time back when the Internet didn't exist... Where things like cars and phones functioned on their own in a much more reliable manner. I grew up in the 80s and have owned several cars from that era. They were significantly less reliable than cars of today. Carburetors were still present (though being phased out) and there were always vacuum hoses that, when they leaked, caused your…

Why do I need cellular data now to use google maps driving gps system when I didn't a year ago?

It's not that we don't need the internet, it's arbitrarily requiring the internet for apps when they worked without it before.

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