In the 2010s, my neighbor asked me to fix their iPad because i was technically literate. I noticed it had a EoL date and it was fast approaching. I realized that iPads were just bigger iPhones. And Chromebooks were also getting popular.
I then realized we were all fucked.
We have all this “disposable” tech that only have a window of about 3-4 years before it breaks down. Even with open-source and boot loading, there’s just so much garbage and it’ll only continue to grow.
We should also force all these tech companies to take in any e-waste (batteries, cables, usb drives, hard drives, plastic containers, anything) and dispose of it properly.
Every product should have a clear EOL path, most preferably a recyclable one. Indeed it should be on manufacturers shoulders to enable it and on legislation to require it.
Tech is becoming more difficult to repair as well. Had a phone that somehow got its WiFi broken. Did everything I could do software wise, so I concluded it was something with the hardware.
Asked a repair shop what they could do. Well they could replace the entire board with CPU and everything, but that’s going to cost about the same as buying a new phone. The choice was easy.
Tech is becoming more difficult to repair as well
There’s a bit of sanity in the world: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/consumer-protection-law/consumer-contract-law/rules-promoting-repair-goods_en
Framework is a great company, but I’m a bit torn on Fairphone. Not sure if I like where their company is going.
EDIT: Because some people asked for clarification about Fairphone, here are my (very subjective) thoughts:
I think the idea behind Fairphone is great, and I think more phone manufacturers should take a few hints about repairability and sustainability from them.
That said, their software is just okay, missing a lot of QoL features that are found with other manufacturers. Also, I’ve seen reports of pretty gnarly bugs after OS updates, but I can’t verify those personally.
Their customer service sucks, according to a lot of people. And as someone with experience in both industries (mostly customer support) I can tell you that those things usually speak for a lackluster management.
Also, small nitpick: I really wish they’d kept a headphone jack on their newest phone.
So yeah, as I said, mostly very subjective. But hey, no one said that liking or not liking something can only be for objective reasons.
Not sure if I like where their company is going.
What’s the point of saying something incendiary like this *without providing an explanation? Does FairPhone oppose Right To Repair? Do you own competing stock? Did the CEO sleep with your wife? Without context or details, telling people this is meaningless…
Edit: autocorrect
I’ve been toying with an idea that the government should keep track of purchases (voluntarily and anonymously) and they should have minimum guaranteed. So if your freezer only last 10 years then the government can see this, or you can see this on the website and the manufacturer has to repair it or refund it fully. Different products have different guarantees
That would sort out shit products pretty quick.
The issue is holding that capital for insurance, especially for new companies (like seriously this is a potential dealbreaker problem) but it might have the added benefit that shite from China can’t get insurance and can’t be sold, only local products can, or products from the west.
Secondly the price of recycling should be included in the upfront cost and the government should provide free recycling. Or it is 150% of recycling cost and the consumer gets the 50% back when they recycle rather than throwing it in a river.
I’ve been toying with an idea that the government should keep track of purchases (voluntarily and anonymously) and they should have minimum guaranteed.
There is already stuff like that where I live in the EU, it runs basically on (e-)receipts or other proofs of sale. Don’t mandatory warranties exist in the US?
that shite from China can’t get insurance
Oh, it totally will, and they will even pretend everything is alright when sold, then by the time you try getting at them the company won’t exist.
Bullshit. I have an iPad from 2011 still in use, Macbook from 2012 still fine running Debian, etc.
I understand that if you’re tech incompetent you need to throw shit out after 2 years, but don’t blame the rest of us for the amount of trash you produce.
Edit: Funny how people downvote someone else for their own dumb actions. You’re all consumers, and bad ones at it apparently.
True to a degree but you can do similar things with thinkpads and keep them longer. The company can always extend lifetime by enabling repairability and upgradeability. But this goes against their profit since they then can’t sell a new product every two years. The consumer shouldn’t have to find ways around planned obsolescence and feel superior if they manage to solve this puzzle.
You gave an example where it is possible to install linux and only basic functionality is required, but what do you think happens with almost all mobile devices?
When it is not possible to change OS/ROM, or they are old, there is no alternative… apart from being stuck with an obsolete OS and apps full of known bugs. Or are you “competent” enough to develop everything yourself?
If you can do the same shit with solar panels or cars or whatever device that has a proprietary bootloader or glued together, then you can climb back on to your high horse.
Pretty much this. If you buy decent stuff and take care of it, then there’s now less of an expiration date than ever before in my experience.
Computers 20+ years ago were really old after 5 years, but nowadays you can put an SSD into a PC from 10 years ago and it will be more than good enough for most people’s usage. And if it doesn’t have enough memory for the current windows 10 bloat, then Linux is an option, but imo it’s better to just add extra ram so that the user can just stay with a familiar os.
Likewise tablets and smartphones, buy decent specs, don’t use cheap chargers and don’t drop them too often and they just seem too last. And if they do slow down, then a factory reset is easy+fast and can bring them to life again. In my family an almost 10y old Shield K1 still works smoothly for daily online media consumption. A cheap Samsung and Microsoft surface from the same era are now giving a horrible experience though, but those 2 were always shit in comparison to the shield.
yours and the parent comment are sniffing your own farts. You can’t think of any other industries where a device cannot be fixed?
They should really mandate open firmware and bootloaders, and even spec sheets, etc. for deprecated hardware.
Just another byproduct of enshittification. Novadays, a top-end Garmin watch lasts about as long as a Chinese watch of a brand with random characters you buy off Amazon. Google is introducing planned obsolesence in Fitbit. Banking apps are beginning to require phones that are no more than 4 years old. TVs get bricked with firmware upgrades. So, consumers are trained to buy cheapest, least reliable electronics, because over time they’ll provide more value than top-end items which used to last much longer. (This was written on a 13 years old phone. I may not have access to my banking app anymore, but otherwise it works for everything I need, and I haven’t contributed to e-waste in this regard. Not that the pollution angle was my reason to keep the phone, but it’s a nice extra bonus.)
I can guarantee this user is not using an iPhone from 2011 - the iPhone 4s went to shit after the first few years of updates
I can guarantee that any Android phone with a good modding community can last this much. He’s probably using Samsung galaxy s series or those old Google Nexus phone.
My phone’s official support stopped at Android 10 yet I’m currently running Android 14 with the help of custom rom.
Don’t be so certain. Using jailbreaks the 4s can be downgraded to either 8.4.1 or 6.1.3. My own one is on 8.4.1 and old.Lemmy.world renders perfectly on it. I’ll grab it actually and see if I can reply to this comment.
I’ve always thought I had a 4s laying around. But just checked and it’s a 5c. With a broken screen. Would that be worth to have fixed and try to jailbreak to use it in 2024?
Most I do is Whatsapp, Lemmy, YouTube and browse the web. Casually.
I have a Galaxy S7 right now but it has never been comfortable to hold for me and the battery is getting old.
Hello! Not sure if the screenshot will attach to this comment but I was able to successfully log into Lemmy and I’m replying to your comment from my iPhone 4s.
With all of this being said and done, I do agree that OP is not likely to be using an iPhone. An Android phone from this period is way more usable than this iPhone even with all the hacks I’ve done to it.
13 years old? What? Even with custom ROMs, how is that still running modern apps?
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.
Have they? In what way?
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.
What TVs? Vizio, Hisense, the Chinese junk budget brands?
Most recently Roku. But I used a TV only as an example. A year ago, an OTA upgrade bricked microwave ovens. Google’s history of bricking its smart home products goes back to at least 2016, companies like Wink threaten to brick your devices unless you suddenly start paying a monthly fee on top of your purchase price “for life”, there were reports of smart bulbs or thermostats ceasing working as well.
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.
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).
In general, the mobile tech sector is “growing up” and supporting products longer.
[Citation required.]
Literally just gave multiple examples. If you want a research paper, you aren’t going to find it.
Fitbits that aren’t the latest model have battery lives shorter than 12 hours (many users reporting 6 hours or less) after a firmware update. It’s a well-reported issue on the fitbit community.
And not to be rude but have you used any electronics released in the past decade? Battery life always goes to crap almost exactly 2 years after purchase, and no one releases products with replaceable batteries. 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, with replacement parts being almost as costly as a new appliance. Inkjet printers refuse to work without all the colors being full, even to the point of not scanning when out of ink. There’s even a story going around about a business-class HP printer that stopped working (full on ink) because the credit card attached to the ink subscription expired.
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.
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.
About a month ago my neighbor left a nice looking TV out by the trash for bulk item pickup with a note saying, “not sure if this works, but free if you want it.” Cosmetically the unit looked to be in good shape, but sure enough when I bring it inside to test, none of the HDMI ports would pick up a signal. I tried different HDMI cables and devices to double check. All of the TV menus would work and there was static on the cable channel, so I knew the pixels themselves were fine. I opened the unit up to find 3 separate circutboards inside, a main board (with the HDMI ports soldered on), a power board, and I think a timing board or something like that (forget the acronym I came across researching). Well I decided to roll the dice and replace the main board with a $130 purchase for a replacement, took about 30 minutes to swap out. Sure enough with a new main board the TV, HDMI units and all, worked perfectly. Now I’m up a 60" Sharp AQUOS TV (~$1500 new) for the price of the replacement board. More importantly, the satisfaction of plugging in an HDMI and seeing a signal come through was priceless. Support right to repair, we have an obligation to preserving and reusing the resources we have access to.
Have you ever had a Logitech mouse start to act funny with the left click? Maybe it double clicks when you know you’ve single clicked, or you click and drag and it doesn’t? Yeah it’s probably the microswitch. I’ve got a little herd of M570’s, after a few years they all start doing that, so I pop them open, it’s like 4 or 5 screws hidden under the little rubber feet and one in the battery compartment, desolder the switch, solder on a new one, and it’s back to working like new.
I’ve had a guy arguing with me that that’s not worth it.
I had a random orbital sander stop working. So many people these days would say “It’s a $99 tool, I’ll just throw it away and buy a new one.” I took mine apart and cleaned the dust out of it. Running like brand new.
Why are people so afraid of fixing things?
Why are people so afraid of fixing things?
There’s a lot of answers to that question.
Device/tool repair is typically not taught in schools, and from my perspective seems far less likely to be taught at home than it was in previous generations.
Most people have substantially less free time than in previous decades. Sure, some things only take 10-30 minutes to repair, but learning how to make the repair is often a significant time investment.
Devices and tools are intentionally designed to be less reparable, if only to cut costs (e.g. using glue instead of screws). Less obvious repairs take more time to learn.
Lastly, a lot of people never learned how to do any of this; they just took their broken stuff down to a VCR repair. Repair shops nearly don’t exist anymore, and the ones that do charge a substantial sum to repair modern devices. It’s often more financially prudent to buy a new laptop than it is to replace the screen of a four-year-old one, for example.
Devices and tools are intentionally designed to be less reparable,
That is a big part of it.
Device/tool repair is typically not taught in schools, and from my perspective seems far less likely to be taught at home than it was in previous generations.
But it is taught online, with a lot of very detailed, very specific tutorials.
You can find step-by-step repair guides for almost everything on youtube. Sites like Ifixit or Repairclinic or Truatedrepair have tons of very detailed guides as well.
.
I think a big part of the problem is that people simply don’t have the mindset of fixing things.
How many times do you see comments like "you spent all this time fixing that, but you could have just bought a new one at Walmart in 20 minutes ".
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.
In this case, I don’t think it’s too bad. The mouse in question is powered by a AA, the shell is held together with five phillips screws (one of them is hidden under a sticker), and the switch in question is a common through-hole microswitch that’s fairly easy to solder by hand. It’s not like a smart phone that’s made of microscopic surface mount components you can’t actually get on the open market held together with microscopic 7.6666 lobe non-euclidean screws in a chassis that’s welded shut like your average smart phone.
The mouse in question has also been discontinued, another reason why I fix mine rather than buy new.
Personally, I think a factor is there’s been a shift by companies in general to not make things as obvious to repair. My dad has a unibody 2012 MacBook Pro and the book literally tells you how to open it so you can service it by upgrading the RAM; a far cry from the situation today.
Older tools were held together with some common screws and were all built the same, so there wasn’t too much concern from the layman popping one open to clean it out to service it. Modern power tools just don’t look like you should be opening them, as the screws are completely hidden, they’re hard to open comparatively, and its usually the battery that goes anyway, which can’t be replaced when it’s been discontinued.
older tools were also much simpler, and usually clam shell halving. Modern tools have overmolding, overlapping clam shells, friction fits, screw posts, set posts. Clips, the single most hellishly thought up invention ever for fucks sake. And all kinds of voodoo magic electronic fuckery going on inside half the time.
My Logitech G500s had the funny clicker, I have a soldering iron but that felt a bit too fiddly (at the time) but I was able to dismantle the switch itself on the board and bend the contacts a bit. Been three years and it’s still behaving. The cable went too at one point, with random disconnects as it moved. Was surprised to discover I could just order a new cable that plugged into the internal socket and it was good as new!
Sometimes it can be an exercise in frustration. My wife’s Redmi note 10 is on its 4th screen, the original and third ones were dropped, the second was shit and crapped out after a couple of months, the fourth is showing signs of going the same way. Along with occasional locking up and WiFi problems that are fixed with a reboot (pretty sure I didn’t break it on my many delves into its guts) I decided fuck it, its a ~£200 phone, get something else this time.
So instead I’m tearing my hair out trying to get her new Samsung A54 to restore the last Google backup.
Wish I had your neighbors. Mine almost always smash their stuff before dumping in the bin so no one else can use it.
Although a few things have creeped through. My current desktop is a AMD something or other, 4Ghz, 32GB Ram, 500GB ssd and all I had to do was get an IO shield and replace some fans.
btw with most modern tvs using side mounted hdmi on the pcb directly, it’s bad solder joints causing these issues. Resoldering the connectors fixes it like half the time.
Interesting, I had ruled this out as likely because all 4 HDMI ports didn’t pick up a signal, but I’ll take a closer look at the board I pulled out.
Because it’s a PITA to recycle e-waste, at least where I live in the US. My municipality charges extra to drop off e-waste, and they only have a few days a year where they have dropoff at the local transfer center to get rid of e-waste.
Hope you have the day off and the cash to pay to get rid of whatever it is.
If you have Best Buys they have e-waste recycling available year round. It doesn’t really solve the problem though, it just ships it off to poorer countries.
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
It’s free. I believe, Best Buy packages it all up and ships it to China. I believe Chinese companies pay for the waste, and then pay very poor people to pick through it for valuable (and toxic) metals. A lot of the metals etc. end up in the groundwater. In other words, it’s still mostly pollution, but dropping it off at Best Buy makes it someone else’s pollution…
Not sure how to feel about all of it to be honest. I still recycle at Best Buy, but it’s kinda like recycling plastic in the municipal recycling, I know most of it ends up in the garbage, and thus as pollution, ultimately. But I still put it where it’s ‘supposed’ to go.
I used to live in a county where it was incredibly easy. Just pull into their clean transfer center and they’ll take it out of your trunk for you. Not just e-waste, but toxic stuff like paint and motor oil. And it was paid for by a very small tax increase.
But now that I live in a different county I have to drop off my electronics between 9 and 3 on a weekday, and there is no mechanism for me to dispose of toxic household waste.
a very small tax increase
That was likely painted as killing your children and causing hellfire to rain down on your home, if some political ads are to be believed. And that’s the actual issue at the heart of everything: if a corporation can’t make obscene amounts of profit doing it, it won’t get done.
