AI crap. The lady on the lower left has a cardboard box for a monitor.

Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.

Ah yes, the Boomer Christians.

They’re creating artificial demand And capitalizing on it to sell you a new phone and power, charger and accessories, and all kinds of other crap.

There has to be some sort of reasonable balance between new developments and longevity.

Asking any engineer for a device that’s near indestructible but will continue to have software updates for 10 years is a hard ask.

For a lot of devices right to repair would work just fine. Being able to swap out battery extends the life of most cell phones. But it’s an unreasonable request for that cell phone, for example, to be able to be supported for 10 years worth of software updates.

It will slow the development cycle for a lot of devices down quite a bit. Which honestly is fine. I feel like a lot of products have reached maturity, and companies are reinventing them just for the sake of reinventing them and selling a “new” product with a new battery. I’m looking at you, Apple.

The problem with determining what is an acceptable lifecycle for a product is that there will be no one left to support the product in 10 years if the company folds in the meantime. It is a significant drag on companies to support legacy products while also innovating and creating new products. It’s just a fact a fact.

And from a consumer perspective, If you want cool, new fancy, shiny shit every year and for it to be reliable and last for 10 years, it’s just not gonna happen. We have been trained To buy new shit every year and desire that new shiny upgrade Without understanding that we’re getting cheap shitty products for a premium.

Your $100” iPhone is now going to become a $3000 iPhone that lasts for five years instead of two. Tell me how that’s a win for anybody?

While I agree that something needs to be done, stronger regulations will just be in an added requirement for the development of these devices, which will make it more expensive.

You can’t have fast development, cheap things, and longevity. Companies will not invest in making those products because they’ll be out of business by the time their market is saturated.

There has to be some growth because inflation eats at the value of your capital every year.

Set up a pihole on your network and add a few block lists. If your IoT appliances phone home at least you can block the traffic and monitor what things phone home.

As for buying appliances that are not smart, It takes extra effort and a trade-off in features.

For example, my toothbrush has Bluetooth in it. if I want a non-Bluetooth toothbrush I’d have to get a lower quality model because they simply don’t make one without it.

Most people buy whatever’s on sale, And considering how expensive home appliances are they usually put the expensive featured models on sale since there’s a bigger margin.

So if I wanted to get a basic one with less features, that’s not smart it would actually be more expensive because it will never go on sale.

Does he just take one off his chest when he gives medals to soldiers?