Comment on Smartphones are Designed to Fail Us (and We Have to Change That)
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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. 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.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
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!
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
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?
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
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.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
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’.