cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13401615
Something that should be considered when buying your micromobility device: Try to get something that will last and not end up as trash.
Man, I’m getting tired for all this corporate apologists.
Yeah, it’s easy to just say “customer should do this, customer should do that”
Why don’t we ask why the customers are like that in the first place. Let’s start with the fact that most consumer devices only get a few years of support.
What happens after that support ends? At best you’ll be vulnerable to security exploits. At worst, you won’t be able to use it in the modern world (3G, anyone?).
While I cannot blame the technological advancement, I do blame the fact that vendors like to make their stuff like black boxes.
Screen or battery broke? Gotta pay hundreds of dollars to get that specific part that doesn’t work on other model (of the same brand even). Kernel 6.6 is the new LTS? Too bad your board is stuck with 4.19 due to all the vendor-specific stuff. Wanna try to embody the spirit of open source and get that vendor-specific to mainline? Too bad you cannot run it to see that it works because we locked the bootloader for reasons you can’t understand.
All that bullshit, and we’re still the one to blame?
To be fair, 3G cellular is technology that is more than 20 years old now, superseded by 4G which is almost 15 years old. It’s not like there haven’t been viable replacements for 3G for more than a decade before it was retired.
The problem is devices still made LONG after 4G came out with 2 or 3G. My friends 2016 Hyundai has 2G for its blue link service that now doesn’t work. My 2018 Outback uses 3G for its Starlink system, but I ripped that box out long ago.
2G is still operational pretty much everywhere. It’s still the lowest level fallback for telecommunications.
This is probably rather US specific, 2G is used for emergency services many places in Europe so it’s not easily disposed of.
2G was decommissioned in Australia too
It is ridiculously difficult to find stuff that isn’t trash. I have the money to spend on better quality stuff, but for some things it is just hard to find stuff that is made to last.
of course, they make proprietary, disposable garbage and no one cares.
And apple isn’t helping with activation locks, and business accounts that never release their products from their account when handed off to recyclers.
Activation locks are to deter theft, which they’re incredibly good at.
But when they are recycled by the thousands and the large institutions that don’t release them after the handoffs. It hurts the used market significantly more.
That sounds like the institution’s fault not Apple’s.
Institutions have been unloading machines with bios passwords for eons, it’s nothing really new other than it’s much harder to bypass it.
Doesn’t exactly help that apple also says not to bother deregistering if it takes too much time.
