This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Software side too: Linux's deliberate choice to not have a stable driver interface is detrimental to atomic distros with the usually shitty proprietary vendor drivers. Causing you to get no updates after a few years or get a new device.
Which is why i think BSD would have been a better fit for Android.
The article is disappointing. It appears author of that article only has one narrow view and assumes the rest of the world has the same.
They buy the most fragile and aesthetically pleasing phones, and complain they are fragile. They advocate for manufacturers to stop making fragile aesthetically pleasing phones, and only make rugged or repairable phones instead. They make an inference that phones should be repairable like cars with accessible parts and non-proprietary tools, but they appear to not know that today's cars have difficulty getting replacement parts and absolutely contain mechanical and electronic proprietary tools to repair the cars.
Mr/Ms author, if you want a phone that doesn't break so easily when dropped, you can buy such a thing right now. Something like CAT phones:
... or other ruggedized Android phones.
I think the last time I dropped a phone an broke the screen on it was maybe 2007. I don't even use phone cases. If your particular use case has you dropping your phone more, buy one that exists and is designed to take those kind of conditions. There's no shame in that, but don't advocate for an entire industry shift because of just your own use case.
Smartphones/technology are still incredibly young in the grand scheme of things. Each of the new generation of devices that comes out adds more functionality for features that people want. Until that stops, it doesn't make sense to try to switch everyone to a "buy it for life" approach. My Commodore 64 computer still works, and is very easy to service, however I wouldn't have wanted technology to stop back then just because its a sturdy built machine. Today I have the paper thin laptops with 8 hours of battery and high speed CPUs are not as rugged or repairable as my venerable C64, but I'm quite glad to have the fragile laptop instead.
Theres this pervasive mentality in online spaces that completely disregards the consumer’s role in all of the design choices of products. They completely ignore that it is the consumer who signaled they wanted this and continue to signal they want this by buying more of the same. Corporations cannot create desires, they only fulfill them. Consumers have demonstrated they want sleek devices that are easy to operate and last only as long as they are not outclassed by next thing. The alternative of course is coming to the realization that consumers prefer convenience and novelty than durability above anything else but once you realize that you become elitist and that’s a big no no. So it must be the corporations fault!
You also ignore the role marketing has to play in convincing people that they need those things. Most people don't need an SUV, let alone a truck, yet I see plenty of people driving these, and even thinking they're safer than sedans. But they cost more money, which means more profit, and why would it be surprising that people who sell something with a relatively inelastic market want to maximize profit dollars per sale?
Is the marketing department putting a gun to your head to force you to buy anything?
I have worked in marketing, and I have a very good, almost academic understanding of it. One of the fundamental rules of marketing is that you cannot create a desire for a product, you can only create products that satisfy a desire. The big trucks are not there because the corporations forced the people to buy them, they are there because the people wanted to buy them and monkeys that we are as soon as we see many big trucks we also want one. There are small trucks in the market. They don’t sell as well as the big trucks. It’s simple free market dynamics and I really hate this pov because it makes it seem as though the corporations dictate what people want when it has always been the other way around.
The real disconnect is that you as an individual are alienated from the wants of the mass market, and this is all too common in online communities because guess what? People who spend time on discussion boards online do not think like the average person. Thankfully as barriers to entry dissolve even in markets like car manufacturing which used to be huge, we start getting more diversity of products, some of them tailored to niche buyers like yourself. But you cannot ask that these products be supported at the same level as the product that 80% of the people want, you have to live with the tradeoffs.
So what you're saying is that marketing provides a sober, unbiased presentatiin of the benefits and drawbacks of the products they're trying to sell, and people make rational, informed decisions? No, like you said, most people behave little better than monkeys, and marketing caters to that, further skewing the norms and pushing people to buy things based on perceived benefits while ignoring the real drawbacks. Next you'll tell me the prescription opioid epidemic wasn't exacerbated by the claims that the new opioids were less addictive and pharmaceutical companies incentivizing doctors to prescribe them more than necessary, a lot of words that boil down to 'marketing'.
Comparing opioids to a truck or a phone is wild. I guess if opioids was something you could just walk into a store and buy without a prescription you would be somewhat right but that hasn’t been the case in a long time. The situation you describe is more about physical availability than mental availability which I think is more to the point of what we are discussing here but sure I can concede that rugged phones being less visible than the sleeker phones leads to them being purchased less often. But again, Samsung once had a mainline galaxy phone that was rugged and it didn’t do well, so maybe people really don’t want an ugly brick of a phone and want what is more aesthetically pleasant.
Let me put it this way, if you do not trust that people can make good purchase decisions. Why do we allow people to make any decisions at all? Much less participate in things so important like democracy?
Your line of thinking, that of removing completely the responsibility of the individual in a free market dynamic will necessarily take you to one or two conclusions depending on what you value more: we accept that the masses will not necessarily make the best choices available but they are absolutely free to make said choices, or that we should divide society between enlightened and non enlightened and the enlightened will dictate how the non enlightened will live because obviously these monkeys need guidance in order to make good decisions.
I flip flop between one or the other, but I always settle in the former because I can’t guarantee that I won’t be lumped with the monkeys.
I don't remove responsibility from the people, but don't pretend that companies don't spend piles of cash on marketing when it has absolutely no influence on their customers' purchasing decisions. Also, don't pretend that marketing isn't pandering to appeal and not function.
I’m not pretending anything, I never stated that marketing pretends to present products as they factually are. Look selling a product that no one wants is really fricking hard, no matter how much budget you have. So in order for something to sell well, people most have already wanted it. It must solve a problem, increase productivity or just fill the daddy shaped holes in their hearts, but they must want it and they cannot be truly manipulated into buying it unless you flat out lie, which is not really a good model on which to build a long term company on.
All I’m saying is that if marketing convinces people to buy a shiny poop they are in all the freedom to do so. But marketing never had the ability to manipulate people into buying something for which there is no desire. The shiny poop might fulfill some inner desire of the masses, who cares? They wanted it, they got it.
Fucking lights bulbs are designed to fail and we are okay with it. Why would anything change with phones.
As in, desgined to fail early? I highly doubt that.
Even if it were true, lightbulbs still last longer and are way cheaper. Whether I have to replace them every six years or every five years doesn't matter as much.
Smartphones are fragile without a case. They should have one, and maybe manufacturers should make that clearer, but a world where removable cases didn't exist would just mean that the case you get is the one that the manufacturer chooses for you and permanently attaches to the smartphone. Less options for you.
Just get a case.
I am also more than willing to carry a slightly thicker device if it means greater durability and easier repairability.
Me too. It's why I have a case.
And I am certain many others would gladly trade their bulky, overpriced cases and bumpers for a sturdier device that inherently provides the protection we now have to purchase separately.
If you want a built-in case, you can get them. There is a whole collection of "ruggedized" smartphones from various manufacturers in China that are large, usually have a hefty battery, and have shielding built into the device.
Look at Doogee for one such manufacturer.
Oukitel for another:
Ulefone for another:
Personally, I think that the built-in case isn't very interesting relative to a removable case, but the large battery might be, depending upon your needs.
EDIT: A number of manufacturers will even make official cases for their phones, if you can tolerate a removable case and just want something endorsed by the manufacturer.
Apple, for example:
https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/accessories/cases-protection
Or Google:
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_8_phone_case?hl=en-US
