Mua-hahahaha!!!
Yes. Yes that's right.
Down with the consumer economy of built-in obsolescence, disposable tech, and subscriptions.
Up with Right to Repair, Permacomputing, Library and Share Economies!
(Also trollololol on "device hoarding" and "costing economy {sic})
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-americans-is-costing-economy.html
LB: "Not being able to afford new shit is killing the economy!"
Lol, eat my balls.
@tinker And while we're at it, how about repairable devices? Eh?
@tinker this whole article it full of absolute tecno-finance babble non-sense. I don't read to the end to understand that it's completely full of unsupported claims that disappear into thin air with just the smallest research.
> "Small businesses, in particular, lose valuable hours each year due to lagging systems, creating what economists call a 'productivity drag,'
you loose a lot of productivity if you need to change your processes to adapt to new hardware every wimp of marketing from the big companies
> Operating at higher GB speeds requires different electronic hardware, and a lot of the older technology can't handle it.
First: no, internet can handle multiple devices at different speeds, so it's not a low layer problem. It is not a home problem because most common hardware can handle 1Gb, it's the providers that have some hard time deploying it. On the mobile space it's not a technology issue: phones can go so fast but the data per month is extremely limited. Even with a 10 year old phone I could burn common data caps in the EU in a day.
so much bullshit.... what are they trying to sell?
@portaloffreedom - I love how every quote from people that being frugal, sustainable, and maintaining their equipment is just so reasonable and down to earth.
Its like they're trying to make it seem bad but the people they interviewed just make their title claim seem to stupid.
@tinker I have a 7y old Linux Phone, and an 8y old laptop with a 12y old processor. I'm more productive than any ibro and their constant distraction inducing tracking, change-me-every-year, bs devices.
Not sorry if that makes Tim fucking Cook sad.
@tinker I can't wait to find out how much I'm costing the economy by not using generative AI
@tinker I *hope* that was mostly written by an LLM. Otherwise all the weird stuff about lost productivity and networks having to lower their speeds (what?) were hallucinations produced by a *human* writer, which is just scary.
@tinker “Both the cellular and internet infrastructure has to operate to be backwards compatible in order to support the older, slower devices. Networks often have to throttle back their speeds in order to accommodate the slowest device”
Okay? Sounds like the cell carriers shouldn’t have spent all that money deploying stuff people don’t want.
@tinker yeah, and the "lost productivity" bit is crap.
@tinker I want to buy more devices...
but stuff i actually like.
@tinker I want to buy more devices...
but stuff i actually like.
@tinker The headline sucks, but most of the article seems to be focused on making things repairable or upgradeable (instead of outright replacement),
and that when people work on slower devices that can suck for productivity,
rather than mostly "Tech Companies Need Your Money To Survive."
@benji_w - They end with blaming individuals on not buying the latest. Its a weird thing where they are claiming an individual keeping their phone affects businesses with loss of productivity for using "slow" devices.
I think all the folks espousing what we would consider positives is lost on the author as they try to use it as evidence that these people are hurting the economy.
@johntimaeus @tinker which, I should say, is quite a bit shorter than it used to be. We still use the clothes dryer my mother gave me, which was made in 1969 (!). It has like five major components, all repairable or replaceable, and YOU CAN STILL GET THOSE PARTS. By contrast, we recently replaced the dryer in our rental house which was ~10 years old because the stupid non-repairable plastic control button assembly failed and had to be replaced every 2 years.
@tinker That's a fair and valid reading of the article.
My preferred solution would be to focus on making software bloat Not make devices behave slower, in addition to repair/reuse...
@tinker damn didn't realize i was responsible for propping up bad economic models my bad gonna keep hoarding anyway
@valkyrie - Hoarding is such charged language, too. Like. How much are they paying the writer for such blatant corporate bootlicking.
To take frugal, sustainable, an responsible actions and call it hoarding. As if not throwing things away and throwing money away and buying the latest all the time is responsible.
Just obtuse and stupid.
@tinker @valkyrie Keeping one device past two or more upgrade cycles while it's still functioning isn't hoarding, it's completely reasonable frugal behavior.
The pile of vintage computers in my office that I'll totes play with one day but they make me happy just sitting there inanimate otherwise, that's fucken hoarding.
@tinker This is such an incredibly biased and stupid article based on questionable statement of facts.
"Oh we process things at 1Gb/s instead of 100Mb/s..".. no dumbass, ideal human readable speed is still at 1200bps! ... BAUD!
just.. so much anger at this article:D
@Toxic_Flange - I *love* it! 😂
@tinker Old man yells at News.. right here, thats me right now:)
@tinker what if it ISN’T OUR JOB to prop up the economy by constantly buying stuff that is going to be (by intent!) ewaste in 5 years? 🤬
Everybody I know in tech is mad because it doesn’t have to be like this. Oh and also software doesn’t need to suck. We want bug fixes and we get “liquid glass” nonsense.
@acsawdey - Agreed. Its not our job to give the rich more money. Especially for disposable expensive crap.
Sooooo.... we're not.
We can just ignore them and do our own thing.
@tinker Yeah. Explaining to everyone I can how cloud IoT stuff just means they’ll shut it off and force you to buy something new as soon as they feel they can get away with it.
![[nate@social0 ~]$ :idle:](https://social.undrground.org/system/accounts/avatars/109/287/468/418/120/577/original/98bcf9eb49f6ef5b.jpeg "[nate@social0 ~]$ :idle:")
