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Comment by what-imright | Hacker News Reader

Stop trying to make hardware last forever. Who here would like to use hardware from 2017? iPhone x anyone? The lifetime of these devices is defined by the reasonable update schedule of the consumer, which is based on moores law. 5 years is a reasonable update schedule. Then put one in a museum and live in the now. You get this much time forget the nostalgia https://www.bryanbraun.com/your-life/months.html

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I don't think you understand the extent of what's going on.

It's not that people are trying to make hardware last forever. It's that these devices are being deliberately designed to break down in a couple years. There are actual design decisions to force consumer behavior into purchasing new things every couple of years.

This doesn't just apply to things that follow moores law. Almost every product in existence nowadays is literally designed to break earlier then they usually do. Companies in certain cases actually spend more money creating a design that ensures that a product will break early so that consumers will buy a new thing within some years.

This includes cars, computers, phones, microwaves, lightbulbs. Etc.

Your personal need to buy a new car, new phone and new clothes is the result of market manipulation over the last 10 decades or so... morphing our culture from one where we kept tools around for years into one where we need to buy new things all the time. It was not like this at least 1 or 2 generations ago.

The result of this endless buying behavior is good for business and the economy but it has devastating effects on the environment and our resources.

Worth watching if you have 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE

The actual story of how companies colluded to make lightbulbs not last as long.

Yes the lightbulb conspiracy and planned obsolescence. Here’s why that’s no longer a threat; it’s bad business. It’s a PR nightmare, and totally unnecessary. For instance my last (17 inch) MBP lasted a full decade including the battery without any service required. In fact it became a problem for me in that I was waiting for it to break so I could go by a new one. Apple learned that having products with planned obsolescence was bad for business and just stopped doing it. Other manufactures are still learning that, sure. But Apple simply ends updates to macOS for certain models and the user can decide if they want to keep running what they have, or update. Because what you’re really purchasing is software and updates, not the hardware. The hardware is just the packaging it is delivered in.

So what about those companies that still include planned obsolescence? You need to vote with your money. Simply don’t buy their product. If you do, if you’re fooled twice, that’s on you.

>Apple learned that having products with planned obsolescence was bad for business and just stopped doing it.

This is False.

Apple is one of the companies that completely buys into planned obsolescence. They never stopped doing it. They still do it and they practically invented it for iphones and ipads.

If other phone companies are doing planned obsolescence then they most likely learned it from apple. Apple is one of the leaders of this concept.

>So what about those companies that still include planned obsolescence? You need to vote with your money. Simply don’t buy their product.

This doesn't account for how humans are irrational. Tons of irrational people buy shit without knowing their part of an irrational obsolescence cycle (aka you). For example, back in the day, apple shortened the lifetime of their phones by not allowing the battery to be replaced. Yet people still buy apple phones EVEN when OTHER companies offered phones with replaceable batteries.

Now the entire industry glues their batteries inside the phone. Apple is paving the way for planned obsolescence and irrational consumers buy in without ever realizing it. Consumers vote with their money the same way they voted for Trump.

>If you do, if you’re fooled twice, that’s on you.

If you buy apple products and you think they don't do planned obsolescence. Jokes on you.

You cite no evidence. I have the opposite experience first hand. Phone manufactures have been copying Apple since the iPhone because they have no sense of innovation whatsoever. The batteries are cheaply replaceable, just not as easily. But your average Jo doesn't want to take a class in watchmaking to change a phone battery, he’ll work an extra shift and drop it at the Apple store. No people aren’t irrational in groups, they simply don’t want to preserve their products more than 5 years. They want to upgrade. Don’t care about supporting the used market. There’s no incentive. They get their money’s worth and move on. These are transient objects for humans passing through their years. A useful novelty, a pleasant experience, that’s all they want.

And not accepting a democratically elected official; again they voted for what was perceived to be in their interests. Trump incentivized. There was no mistake.

>These are transient objects for humans passing through their years. A useful novelty, a pleasant experience, that’s all they want.

There is huge drive to position the products in this way. Consumers including you are manipulated to think this way for products that traditionally aren't thought of this way. It has become so ingrained that you can't tell the difference.

>You cite no evidence.

https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/01/apple-lawsuit-portugal-planne...

https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/apples-planned-obso...

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/08/apple-to-pay-34m-...

https://nypost.com/2021/12/02/apple-may-soon-kill-off-older-...

https://www.idropnews.com/news/spanish-consumer-protection-g...

https://wccftech.com/apple-iphone-6-planned-obsolescence-thr...

https://www.makeuseof.com/apple-faces-750m-lawsuit-throttlin...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-244-apples-pla...

https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/apple-receives-planned-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378

https://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Business%20E...

https://actions.sumofus.org/a/planned-obsolescence-is-why-ap...

https://dailytargum.com/article/2019/09/iphones-and-planned-...

https://durabilitymatters.com/planned-obsolescence/

https://www.shacknews.com/article/123046/apple-faces-new-law...

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4134160-apples-planned-obso...

https://dailycampus.com/2022/03/28/dull-and-new-the-truth-be...

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/22/16807056/apple-slow-iphone-ba...

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN29U1BB

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353685307_FROM_PLAN...

https://www.euroconsumers.org/activities/stop-planned-obsole...

https://www.howtogeek.com/681577/how-to-claim-your-cash-from...

https://undergradlawreview.blog.fordham.edu/consumer-protect...

https://www.europastar.com/news/1004088006-tech-trend-thursd...

https://thehustle.co/why-your-iphone-only-lasts-two-years-ma...

https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/planned-obsolescence/ (defines planned obsolescence. first example is apple)

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Apple,_iPhone_...

If you would like more please let me know.

Also you know that video I sent you about the light bulbs? That was just the first part. The Video is about planned obsolescence in general and it talks about APPLE. Watch the whole thing.

> I have the opposite experience first hand.

Oh wow, Ok you win the debate.

So what if it is true? Let’s take Apple’s flagship product the MacBook Pro @ $2500 USD. Now assuming a five year service that’s $500 a year, perfectly reasonable for a daily driver. What is that $1.35 per day. You want to benefit from this technology you’re going to need to compensate the people who design build and maintain it. They could easily charge an order of magnitude more to professionals.

I mean where did this fantasy come from that you’d benefit from hundreds of years of work for a couple thousand bucks? And that it would last forever and be maintained and updated by the manufacturer forevermore? What is this utopian dream you’ve dreamt up? Why don’t you take a pile of sand and a pool of oil and a lump of aluminum and go make your very own laptop? Oh right, you can’t do it without other people.

I'm using and developing on a 2013 MBA, thank you. Phones become obsolete because the underlying tech has been going through large changes, but I can certainly get more than 5 years out of them. To top it off, I live in an affluent country. Imagine those countries where a $500 phone is a gigantic deal.

I am just about to leave my iPhone SE first generation. That was 2016 when it was released. I probably bought it around 2017. It's absolutely fine, when it works.

But now the display is getting weirdly jagged at random, odd reboot loops, and so forth. Time ... to die.

Five years, a little more than your average replicant. It's still delightful for my use. The replacement will be larger and will cost me money I would rather spend on other things. With the protective case and the Applecare and the ablative glass addition, my fondleslab will run me over a couple hundred a year, if I include my data plan. I would like just a little more life, father.

I’m afraid that’s a little out of my jurisdiction. The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.

How about forcing companies to do being so wasteful with badly, badly oh so badly written software.

Sure advances happen but nearly nobody _needs_ the equivalent of avx2048 on a phone.

Windows XP lasted almost an entire generation in computing terms. Sure it probably wasn't the most fun thing to work on by the time it was retired but Microsoft kept that going as the 64bit era launched and pcie and x86 multicore became the norm. Saying it can't be done is just excusing not wanting to go back and fix things or maintain stuff.

My 2015 iPhone works just fine for me, thank you very much. It’s on its third battery (despite apples best effort at preventing me from replacing it).

I wouldn’t need to update if Apple let me put iOS 16 on it or at least committed to shipping security updates to iOS 15 beyond Sept. 2022.

We don’t all need this years 1000$ (!!!!!!) phone, some of us are very content buying a few years old used phone for 200$.

Replying on my `MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)` ... this is a great machine, why should I need to replace it?

what advancements have made toothbrushes or computer mice from 2017 obsolete?

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