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Comment by bagosm | Hacker News Reader

Dear capitalist America,

Even the notion of hardware that is disposable is appalling and out of tune in the state of the world today. Please, don't focus on cheap production of items that are intended to have a short lifespan.

We need modular hardware. New camera came out and you really want a new camera? Sure, go ahead, upgrade the one you have on your iModularPhone.

Need crash-proof stuff? Sure, here is some of our flexible screen phones.

You see, durability, for the end user, could as well mean cheapness. Upgradeability, for the end user, could as well mean cheapness.

So, instead of dreaming the perfect product, or as a hacker have the need to improve and upgrade, please don't even for one second accept cheap, fragile items.

Limited features is ok (but possibility to upgrade is non-optional). Limited lifespan is never ok.

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A lot of the cheapness of these devices comes from the non-modulatity of them, basically the fact that the entire system is on one small chip (system-on-chip/SoC). You can't really have both this historic low-cost of items and expandability/modularity at the same time. Increasing the modularity means more interconnects, more complex case designs, etc, etc, which means much higher prices, not lower ones.

You could argue that all of this comes at a mucher higher shared long-term cost in terms of more garbage, global warming, etc, and you'd be right, but good luck offering a highly expandable, "green" device alongside the latest SoC-device out of China (selling at 10% of the lowest cost you could possibly produce the former device for) at your local Walmart. People are simply wired to make decisions that benefit themselves in the short term.

Modularity has several drawbacks. You need a connector on the host and a connector on the addon. This means you have added cost; not just component cost but in circuit board design. There are more solder connections, and thus more places for the gadget to fail. You've also made the device bigger and heavier.

In theory PCs are modular and upgradable. Except everything obsoletes every few years. Even things which sort of are the same (RAM) have changing features. (See, for example, DDR 2 vs DDR 3)

Baffling pop at America there. Many of these devices are designed outside the US, made outside the US, and sold outside the US.

Semi-disposable hardware is not merely a US problem.

I'm happy to shake my fist at the yanks - they use / waste an enormous amount of energy and should really start to focus on efficiency.

You mean open and standardized system that is serviceable and mainable ... like PC? Sadly only the end users and developers benefit from the unwalled gardens.

I don't see why disposableness would be intrinsically bad -- however if not dealt with by society, it will most likely lead to environmental damage. Personally I advocate large taxes on dangerous materials and chemicals, perhaps recoupable when recycled.

Exactly. Internalize the externalities.

Modular hardware? Yes, please! Right now, I can upgrade the RAM, CPU, GPU and storage in my servers, desktop, and laptop. My phone? Not so much. And it wouldn't pain me so much, but for the fact that I'm missing out on things like NFC and low power Bluetooth. If I can get a software defined radio in a wristwatch (http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2011/04/reprogramming-ez430...), then why can't I have one in a cell phone?

Unfortunately modularity goes against the interests of companies producing gadgets. They'd rather have you buy a full upgrade every 2 years than just change a few components once in a while.

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