The right-to-repair movement is growing as wins stack up
The right-to-repair movement is growing as wins stack up
Laws protecting consumers’ ability to seek out independent repairs for their appliances are spreading across the United States.
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Just had my brother in law show me a concept phone where you just put in block modules for the things you want and need in a phone. Want more battery? Take off your camera block module and plug in more battery block modules.
Obviously the concept as presented is near impossible to achieve. I told him that and said we can get close. I showed him framework laptops that are trying to achieve the very thing he wanted (to a certain extent). He said that if they could make that a phone he would switch from his apple ecosystem in a heart beat. The ability to swap for a bigger speaker on the fly for get togethers and parties was tantalizing (big music guy).
Just interesting because even non tech people want this when you sell it to them properly. They don't actually want a walled garden ecosystem that is "simple".
Just interesting because even non tech people want this when you sell it to them properly. They don’t actually want a walled garden ecosystem that is “simple”.
Nobody actually wants a walled garden, they just get entrapped in them ("it's just where my friends/music/content creators are")
They then become convinced that they want it, and its reinforced by the walled gardeners (looking at you, iMessage videos and bubbles)
I know a person who built their own PC (Windows, but still) from scratch for the first time as an adult. Had the money and the opportunity to buy a prebuilt rig in two clicks, but instead researched the market, ordered parts and tools, exchanged a part that didn't fit the case, learned how to assemble it all by hand, and exclaimed that it was a great experience and would do it all over again.
And yet at every opportunity still buys an iphone despite the cost because it's "simple" and they "don't want to learn" something new. That's not the actual reason - that's just stockholm syndrome.
No, they really just don't want to learn. I promise people would rather be okay with their current situation (even if its shitty) as long as they don't have to learn. Because a lot of people decided that once they were done with high school/college, that there was no need to learn anymore. And now its hard for them to learn
If they do choose to learn, its because they want to. But if they don't want to learn, they simply wont. It really is simple.
I've just described to you a person that really wanted to learn something, and did it. Put in hours of mental and physical effort. And your response is that nobody wants to learn, and that people only learn what they want to learn? Which is self-evident and vacuous. (Edit: leaving this comment unchanged for the sake of clarity, but apologies for the aggression)
Inertia and degradation of curiousity is a real issue but my point is that the creators of the walled gardens intentionally discourage that curiousity.
Most people naturally want to learn. Even into adulthood. But people - like water and electricity - naturally tend toward the path of least resistance. And everywhere they go, walled gardens offer them more and more paths with less and less resistance at every step.
There still lives a generation or two that ripped apart computers, crashed them with amateur code, bricked them with viruses, reformatted the drives and put it all back together again as kids and adults. They did that because it was something they wanted to learn. It wasn't easy, or simple. It was hard, and confusing, and risky. Kids of the generations that followed don't do that nearly as much, even though they could.
Are those kids inherently less curious than their parents were at the same age? No. At least, not by birth. They've just been offered a path of less resistance, and they took it. Does that mean they want that path? No. There's just so many paths in front of them that the path of technological literacy is lost in the weeds.
Yes, people only really learn what they want to learn. But the reason people in general are getting less curious over time is because they are being convinced that they want to learn something else, or worse, more often than not they're being deceived into thinking they're learning at all.
I’ve just described to you a person that really wanted to learn something, and did it. Put in hours of mental and physical effort. And your response is that nobody wants to learn, and that people only learn what they want to learn? Which is self-evident and vacuous.
No need to be rude man. You also described the same person as unwilling to learn something. And I didn't say that person wanted to learn or not, I generalized and said people don't want to learn.
I believe we are both trying to say the same thing with different emphasis.
You are emphasizing that people do like to learn, but there are external forces that encourage/convince them not to.
I am emphasizing that people don't like to learn, unless they want to overcome the external forces. I just don't buy the excuse of external factors stopping people from learning, that's part of the learning process.
Your example talks about a person building a pc. Yes it takes time, energy, money, and learning. But it also has A TON of resources to help with that on the internet, definitely makes it easier. It is now a famously recommended project for anybody, even kids. It was also something that is 'new' to them, I assume.
Typing this out made me realize a distinction I failed to bring up. People do like to learn, but people HATE to UN-learn ideas. The person in your example wanted to learn something new, but did not want to unlearn the iphone walled garden.
Typing this out made me realize a distinction I failed to bring up. People do like to learn, but people HATE to UN-learn ideas. The person in your example wanted to learn something new, but did not want to unlearn the iphone walled garden.
This is an excellent point. You're right, we do agree, sorry my comment came off aggressive.
RIP Phonebloks
Is this a fairphone?
No it was this concept that never came to be. It's not possible/practical.
Just to chip in, whilst I agree that Fairphone is not a truely interchangable modular phone, it does have the ability for some modules to be replaced.
The Fairphone 3 even had the ability to upgrade with better ones to create the 3+
I don't think the newer models are doing that though, which is a shame
I'm feverishly imagining smart phones with old school slider keyboards
I remember when Motorola was working on that concept like 10ish years ago, and then they got bought and sold and the project was nerfed into uselessness.