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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

#81

Post by lttlrck »

kibwen wrote: post #38
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,…

What software do you need for you work? Assuming you're a software developer, and unless you're doing something Apple-specific, it's hard to think of software that works on Mac but doesn't work on Linux. As far as options go, I picked up a System76 earlier this year and I've been surprisingly happy with PopOS.

Even if you are a developer, you often have to interact with non-developers using either Microsoft or Apples Office suites. Some people really hate using web-based office tools, and for good reason.

(I develop on Linux, and use Office 365 without too much trouble but it's far from perfect)

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

#82

Post by jjoonathan »

eru wrote: post #54
MereInterest wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market will avoid the proprietary solutions if that's really what the market feels I don't really buy into (no pun intended) any argument that relies on the efficient market hypothesis. As this article pointed out, there's a vast asymmetry of information, which prevents an efficient market, even in theory. > but I suspect these companies actually have a good idea about what their customers are looking for. I su…

> As this article pointed out, there's a vast asymmetry of information, which prevents an efficient market, even in theory. What kind of theory are you using here? There might be some theoretical reasons to expect that symmetric information (and a few other conditions) will lead to an efficient market. But that doesn't mean that a pre-existing information symmetry is necessary for an efficient market. The classic exa…

> What kind of theory are you using here?

You're about to talk about "market for lemons," so presumably you figured it out.

> the business solution to this problem

It's not solved, so I can't wait to hear about the solution.

> reputation

LOL. Reputation is laggy, easy to manipulate, and easy to bypass.

> warranties

Insurance contracts are even harder to analyze for quality than cars, so you have replaced a small problem with a big problem.

> Miele dishwasher.

I am glad you are happy, but I am not in a position to assess if there is wisdom in your happiness. In markets where I am in a position to analyze the wisdom in premium options... you have to pay a very high dollar premium for a very small edge in quality. Buying cheap and hoping for the best (70% 1x, 30% 2x) absolutely pummels buying premium in cost efficacy (90% 2x, 10% 4x), even though the cost premium to produce quality is small. In other words, "market for lemons" fits my observations of market price structure while "reputation and warranties are totally great" just doesn't fit the evidence.

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

#83

Post by pixl97 »

eru wrote: post #71
klodolph wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Do you have some specific argument that you want to make against food industry regulations, or are you just trying to point out logical fallacies?

As people get richer, they can and will afford better food, including from suppliers with better reputation. As people get richer, they also often tend to demand stricter regulation, but that doesn't necessarily mean the regulation is the driving factor. The Chinese market for eg baby formula might be a good example. On average, baby formula consumed in China today is less dodgy than it was in the past. A big part of…

>The Chinese market for eg baby formula might be a good example

Um, what? The Chinese government executed people over adulterations of products.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna28...

Sorry for the Amp link

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

#84

Post by aimor »

noSyncCloud wrote: post #62
userbinator wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also severely overdrive the LEDs to get more brightness, at the cost of both reduced efficiency and lifetime. At least the Phoebus Cartel had an ostensible explanation (efficiency) for what they did. Doing the same with LED lighting is pure corporate greed. Some of the indicator LEDs on some of my electronics are many decades old, yet they are still functioning like when they were new. Clearly LEDs can last a lo…

Extremely relevant article from Hackaday - https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...

So when I buy a 600 lumen LED bulb that burns 7 W, I'm not only getting hosed because they're overdriving the LEDs but I'm also using over twice as much electricity as I could be?

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

#85

Post by nmz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31
clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). It would be good if * We could safely obtain reputable Li-ion batteries from reputable sources. I trust a handful of com…

> I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). We went through this exact cycle with laptops and cellular phones. The hardcore internet users were furious when compa…

Laptops are not an emergency item. when the power goes out I for one don't go immediately looking for my laptop. I look for my phone, and then immediately go looking for any flashlight, because I need to save as much power as possible until the power is back up.

Every year there's a hurricane, wherever it passes, a good amount of people will be out of power for maybe a week, If you cannot buy a battery in the corner store, you haven't bought a flashlight, you've bought a toy.

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

#86

Post by nmz »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #64
eru wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We had to heavily regulate the food industry to prevent bad actors from causing negative effects, [...] Sounds like 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' to me.

Are you suggesting that it might be just coincidental that companies stopped putting chalk dust in milk at about the same time that doing so became illegal?

Some cookies are still made with sawdust.

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

#87

Post by deathanatos »

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 have been a simple $5 replacement cord is now "replace the entire converter" and is now $30 if you try to find a third-party and pray they're not a fraud, or $50 from the manufacturer. Meanwhile at perfectly good converter (sans cord) is landfill.

But lo and behold: the brick-to-wall cord is detachable. And funny that, that one never breaks…

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

nmz wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). We went through this exact cycle with laptops and cellular phones. The hardcore internet users were furious when compa…

Laptops are not an emergency item. when the power goes out I for one don't go immediately looking for my laptop. I look for my phone, and then immediately go looking for any flashlight, because I need to save as much power as possible until the power is back up. Every year there's a hurricane, wherever it passes, a good amount of people will be out of power for maybe a week, If you cannot buy a battery in the corner…

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by rob_c »

Pft, and capacitors leaking, and the lack of security patches and defects from coil whine and thermal expansion...

This is the tip of a very large iceberg. I'd love to see it fixed, but id rather we don't forget the other problems just because we're taking about the battery issue...

(And while we're on that one this covers electronic cars as well. But I guess some people believe that replacing a car every 10 years is somehow green efficient and makes up for a whole new car being ripped out of the ground somewhere in the 3rd world)

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

#90

Post by rob_c »

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…

> But lo and behold: the brick-to-wall cord is detachable. And funny that, that one never breaks…

Yup. But that shows they're willing to pretend to be recyclable...

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