Dark Arc

It’s far more common for Democrat run municipalities to create municipal cable and for Republicans to outlaw (or propose outlawing) municipal cable state wide.

It’s not even politicizing it’s a literal Republican talking point that the government should stay out of things and let free market competition sort these things out.

The problem with that of course is that they’d rather take money from some regional monopolies than actually create a free market system with reasonable restrictions on it.

I haven’t given Discord a dime from the start because I knew this was going to happen.

The entire premise of Discord’s free service was to gobble up the market from TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, and Mumble and capture the ecosystem using a ton of venture capital. In any sane world it would be an illegal mode of operation to provide “free service” based on venture capital like that.

TeamSpeak did manage to react but their reaction has been slow (I think they’re a much smaller team and still a private company). Their new client is fairly feature complete but still not out of beta (AFAIK).

Mumble is an open source project and is still ticking as a result as well (though obviously it’s received much less love since Discord stole the spotlight).

I had a buddy who was a Linux ARM laptop fanatic back in like 2014. Microsoft had been trying to make Windows on ARM a thing for years before that.

Apple was the first to popularize it but it’s been a work in progress if you’ve been paying attention for a LOT longer. What helped Apple is all the work they did on their own ARM chips for iOS. They managed to get pretty close to x86 performance in an ARM chip. They also had an app store of apps that could run on them and an emulator for things that wouldn’t.

Every time Microsoft tried nobody would release ARM builds… People just bought the x86 laptops. It’s the same chicken and egg problem desktop Linux has had for years.

Apple didn’t invent the ARM laptop

GAMURRR aesthetic either

Yeah, I’ve been happy that’s been toned down more recently in general with gaming gear … everything doesn’t look like some ridiculous “if hasbro designed a computer peripheral/component/case/etc.”

A lot of gaming stuff was just ugly and lacking any good design elements for a loonnngggg time.

Battery life always goes to crap almost exactly 2 years after purchase

Disposable battery technology is disposable. We don’t have truly rechargable batteries yet … and the EV batteries only last longer (AFAIK) because they’ve got better cooling systems and are higher grade – read more expensive – components.

Appliances use plastic parts and come with a plethora of unnecessary features all on one circuit board so when one feature breaks the appliance is dead

That’s not the entire story there … it’s just cheaper to make it one board. You can eliminate some points of failure by using one board as well.

It’s definitely ridiculous appliance companies aren’t providing parts. I’d also like to point out … I was specifically responding to the widespread e-waste from the mobile devices sector. Not “all things that could possible become e-waste in 2024.” GUARANTEED planned obselence is what has been happening there for years with “2 years of device security updates” and that nonsense is ending.

There’s even a story going around about a business-class HP printer

Yeah, don’t buy HP.

It’s gone long past planned obsolescence at this point. Whether it’s software or hardware, companies want you subscribed for life. Anything less and they break the devices that were able to dupe you into thinking you owned.

Subscriptions aren’t necessarily the enemy when it comes to e-waste. They’re bad for ownership, but they’re not bad for planned obsolescence and e-waste. If your subscribers need your device to keep working to keep paying you, you’ve got a much stronger incentive to keep the device working vs just abandoning it.

This already happened with software, there really isn’t “buy once then buy again and again and again” software anymore, the vast majority of software has gone subscription. This is also true of online games like CSGO, Hunt Showdown, Fortnite, etc.

It’s just a matter of making things into subscriptions that are mutually beneficial. Your printer being an InkJet printer with a vendor locked in subscription that doesn’t offer any real service is absurd and should be illegal. Your smart home camera having a subscription to store cloud video, provide new features and security updates … that’s a reasonable service that a lot of “normal” people don’t want to do themselves (and incentivizes manufactures to keep their devices working so you keep paying).

A big part of the problem with e-waste is that companies setup fancy features to sell a product but didn’t plan for how to support that product’s software for the life of the product (because they’re not making any more after the point of sale) … so we end up with a very insecure piece of unserviceable e-waste.

Don’t get me wrong we’ve still got a long way to go before we find a solution that handles the problem for all the various devices being manufactured these days. However, credit where it’s due the mobile devices sector / “big tech” is doing better than they have for the last 15 years, and that’s all I’m trying to contest. There IS change happening.

This is speculation by Ars Technica. Essentially, a recent firmware upgrade seems to have drastically lowered the battery life of some models. In addition, they are removing all third-party apps in the EU in response to the DMA.

Sounds like it’s more speculation from users published by Ars … which is fair but also needs to be taken to some degree with a grain of salt. This is not expert commentary, this is personal anecdote. It’s a grievance I have with a lot of media, e.g., interviewing random people on the street for “their take” … they don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about.

I’d flag this as concerning but, it’s also not uncommon for updates to devices to require more resources, with requires more power and can definitely be done accidentally. There’s the doomer argument that it’s all malicious planned obsolesced under the guise of plausible deniability … but I wouldn’t be so sure. They’re selling subscriptions for fitbit, for a subscription model to work, the fitbit needs to work; it’s against their own interest in continued revenue to brick the devices.

Google does need better support in general; it’s not uncommon for bugs to go unfixed for way longer than should be acceptable.

Most recently Roku.

That’s not a bricking from a firmware upgrade; it is scummy though.

Google’s history of bricking its smart home products goes back to at least 2016

They’ve discontinued products they haven’t launched but purchased, that’s not quite the same thing. Even some very old nest cams are still working just fine (again it’s against their best interest to sell subscriptions and have devices that they’re selling subscriptions for dropped from support/virus ridden/etc). That’s a bit scummy but it does make sense from a “we want some of their technology but don’t want to maintain their code/redevelop the product on our software.” Every piece of hardware they’ve done this on has seemed incredibly niche to me as well (i.e., not something you’re going to find in your local department store).

The exception to that was their nest home security system, which IIRC they allowed users to pivot into an ADT system (and I vaguely recall offering some level of refunds).

Their Stadia controllers they provided a free tool to convert into generic Bluetooth controllers after shutdown… Literally nothing to gain from that except perhaps some PR.

There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary for Google bricking perfectly good devices “just because.”

Wink threaten to brick your devices unless you suddenly start paying a monthly fee on top of your purchase price “for life”

Yeah, this is the typical “startup made a bad business decision and is now trying to squeeze users.” I hate it as much as you do (but it’s not Google, Samsung, or generally speaking the mobile sector/big tech/mainstream tech).

The following is pure speculation on my part: I think we’re at the beginning of a huge wave of planned obsolescence. Everyone and their mother are now training AI’s, and they want their customers to replace older products, which don’t support AI integration, with new ones. They’ll soon stop supporting the older devices or outright bricking them, to force people to buy the new ones.

Big “press X to doubt” from me, primarily because of the desire to sell subscriptions. I think more likely Google (as an example) will keep everything they can working and then sell Gemini subscriptions on e.g., the nest hub + make new nest hubs with attractive features.

Speculation on my part but I think Google invested in Fuschia (and ported tons of legacy devices in the Nest ecosystem) specifically because they wanted to reduce the security risk and maintenance burden of keeping old devices going (to maximize subscription revenue).

Yeah, all the Logitechs and Razors I’ve ever had are glued (or some other non-obvious method of entry). Gaming mice tend to be the worst about this.

I have gone with Logitech over Razor as I have found them to last significantly longer. My last Logitech lasted ~5 years compared ~2.5 I was getting out of my razor mice.

It’s incredibly common for Logitech and Razor to put a rechargeable battery in all their wireless mice instead of a user serviceable battery as well. This is in part because the general population seems to prefer this strategy (and it’s better than non-rechargable AA or AAA batteries … but that doesn’t mean it’s good).

If anything they’re supporting hardware with driver/OS updates less now than before.

That is literally false information. Prior to the last year there has been no version of Android that has more than 4 years of operating system security updates, before that it was common to be 3 and before that 2. They bumped it to 7.

I have a good working Android tablet that I’ve replaced the batteries on twice that I now can no longer use because the OS won’t get updated any more (security risk, etc.). Perfectly working, has to go in the trash.

Literally what I just explained they’ve been working to change, and have changed for their latest devices.

Literally just gave multiple examples. If you want a research paper, you aren’t going to find it.

They’ll take. most of the stuff they take, for free: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/services/recycling/pcmcat149900050025.c?id=pcmcat149900050025

Staples also has a good recycling program: https://www.staples.com/stores/recycling

I think the mouse repair issue needs to be fixed. It’s criminal that they’re not user serviceable with replacement parts.

A switch or battery going bad should not require a brand new mouse.

Google is introducing planned obsolesence in Fitbit

Have they? In what way?

They’ve done good work for Android and Pixel, promising 7 years of updates for the latest Pixels. Samsung has also gotten much better about this with their recent phones. That’s going to put a huge dent in the e-waste as Android phones have surely been heavy contributors (certainly much higher than fitbit).

TVs get bricked with firmware upgrades.

What TVs? Vizio, Hisense, the Chinese junk budget brands?

Very sympathetic to your e-waste concerns; I think the source of the problem is actually getting better not worse though. In general, the mobile tech sector is “growing up” and supporting products longer.

I’ve wondered if it would be possible to have a federated award system for funding… Similar to what Reddit was doing at one point. I actually kind of enjoy that and the fun emoji-like things that you’d see on interesting posts and comments.

That sounds like it’s asking for some crypto currency mess though, or some (most?) instances just hanging them out for no charge.

Gah, I actually meant chain of trust… Oops…

WebChain of trust, the site only trusts certain attesters (yes this would be really bad for Linux).

EDIT: Used the wrong “of trust”

It is ultimately run by elected representatives though. Popular opinions matter

The cheapest brother is $120 (USD) https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL2300D

If you want color, sure that’s more ($250). Still not a long shot from what you paid for your HP, plus that ink (and I’d wager you’d still be going without a single follow up purchase of toner).

For context (per their own product claims):

• Brother Genuine TN227 High-yield replacement toner delivers rich, vivid professional laser print quality you can rely on for up to 3,000 pages (black) and up to 2,300 pages (color) (2)
• Additional replacement toner option available for this model: TN223 Standard-yield (1,400 pages black/1,300 pages color) (2)

True, but they require a lot of test prints until you get back to an acceptable print quality in my experience

The thing is since inkjet printers dry out you spend way more on cartridges over time. Sure toner is more expensive, but you but it way less frequently.