"Progress"

[rs55]

Between 1995 and 1998 things started to get good. Winows 95 was OK ... better than 3.1 and ....Win 98 .. Wow ... hardly ever froze and shut down with a blue-screen-of-death. Life was good.
WordPerfect was an excellent little word processor , Lotus123 was a great spreadsheet. There were plenty of choices for photo organizers ( ACDSee, ...), and Music players.
So, I could write stuff, keep track of finances on Lotus , listen to music and organize photos. The web was young. We did not have anything like today. Email had just become a Thing.
So, whats happened since then?
Massive progress on the internet. Yes thats progress.
Everything else? Not much.
I view all "updates" and "new apps" etc with deep suspicion. Most of the effort by Companies over the past couple of decades has been on ... how to make money by threatening and scaring the hapless peasants. ( Machiavelli said " Its better to be feared than loved".. Microsoft is the worst offender.
I view most "updates" and such as primarily things to help MS or Google or whoever make more money. very little progress has been made in terms of applications that have actually helped the end user, brought new capabilities. The end-user is a "peasant" and all the effort has been on how to squeeze a few bucks by scaring the hell out of the peasants.

Marketing has changed. It used to be that you had to do something exciting for the consumer, something that a consumer would desire ... and maybe pay you for. That has changed. The New marketing is .... scare the hell out of people ... and tell them that unless they pay up , they will be invaded by ...........(everyone from large companies to governments gets this. It works. its effective.). After all its a scary-scary world , and only They can protect you .

Open source is like cool breeze. The only honest game in today's world. I take my hat off to you guys.

[rs55]

Take hardware: I cant think of a better laptop today than the thinkpad X230. That was 2011.
It had powerful processors ... Intel core i5/i7. You can change the Ram - upto 16GB. 2 screws to remove the keyboard. You can install an msata ssd. You could replace the battery after 5 years or so ( rather than throwing the machine out). parts are still available easily .. You can change the display to IPS. keyboards, ram, batteries, various body parts. All in the $50 range.
\Whats really better about lenovo laptops since then? Nothing. Keyboards are worse, much worse. Cant replace the battery. cant open up the machine without taking the whole thing apart. Cant add Ram !!! And the processors are worse than those 2011 core i5 processors - in every aspect except power savings.
Its a dumbed down entertainment device for watching youtube videos on a plane and making snide remarks on twitter.

I just bought a X230 , in untouched , fresh condition ( not even a scratch). with a new battery, and 4GB ram ...... for $60. Thats Progress!!

[rs55]

But .... Iam sure the new harware is Safer... will protect you from the Boogeyman.... You dont want to take a chance .... on Things... hand over $2000.

[rs55]

But .... Iam sure the new harware is Safer... will protect you from the Boogeyman.... You dont want to take a chance .... on Things... hand over $2000.

Its Vito Corleone's World.... we just get to live in it!

[sunrat]

You forgot the "Now git off ma lawn!'.

But I do agree. The overall corporatisation, globalisation, and just downright greed culture is disturbing. I was talking to a muso at work the other day who used to use a MacbookPro with Ableton in his shows but the newer models have just become so thin they don't have any decent cooling capacity. He had 6 crashes during shows so ditched it for Roland SPD and MPC which perform the same function reliably.
Little things like making phones so thin they can't have removable batteries is negligent and disrespectful to the environment. My current Pixel phone (first version) still does everything I need but the battery is starting to have less life. It's a tragedy to have to replace the whole phone just for the battery. And why can't they just make bigger phones with tough cases so you don't have to buy an external case just to protect the poor fragile thing?
Now git off MY lawn!

[JayM]

Planned Obsolescence is still a thing. They want you to either throw your old device away and buy a new one when the battery wears out (ca-ching!), or take it to an Authorized Service Center (so they get their cut of your money: ca-ching!) and pay to have the battery replaced with a Genuine OEM-Branded battery (which they also make money on. Ca-ching!)

When I was a kid we had a 1950's-era Sunbeam toaster, heavy stainless steel or chrome-plating (I don't know which), rounded edges and bakelite handles. It "Just Worked" and lasted as long as I remember. After my mother died about 20 years ago my sister, brother-in-law and I were going through her things and deciding who to give what to and my sister said "Hey, do you need a toaster?" Yep, it was that same one. I took it home and used it until I moved to the Philippines, at which time I gave it to my sister. That toaster was almost as old as I am and had continued making toast for 50 years. Even the heating elements lasted the entire time. As far as I know she still has it and uses it. New toasters are made of thin steel and plastic and don't last more than a few years, if that. They're certainly not family heirlooms as that old Sunbeam became, they're just cheap. tinny toasters.

There used to be TV repairmen that would come to your house and fix your television. Same for other large appliances: washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers. For small appliances like toasters and blenders there were little independent fix-it shops you could take them to. Most of these things were, well, not quite one-time purchases but were major purchases and were expected to last for many, many years. A family might go through only two or three televisions, refrigerators, etc. within the living memory of the family members. Now, you're lucky to get five years of use before they fail, and repairing them costs almost as much as buying a new one if they're even able to be repaired so off to the landfill they go and you buy a new one. (Ca-ching!)

Get off of MY lawn! (Or you may be hit on the head by a falling jackfruit.)

[Jerry3904]

And why can't they just make bigger phones with tough cases so you don't have to buy an external case just to protect the poor fragile thing?

FWIW I bought a ruggedized Android phone for about 200 USD a year ago that I use for data collection outdoors. Not a terrific camera and kind of clunky but tough and plenty fast. Will take that to Europe in the fall, swapping out the SIM card.

My take: not everything in the past was better and not everything today is horrible.

[Eadwine Rose]

Absolutely true Jerry!

[rs55]

Engineering is always about tradeoffs. And huge companies like MS , when faced with the following ( hypothetical) tradeff, make the wrong choice ( from my perspective).
lets say there is a software change that will have the following effect:
1. Increase performance by 20%
2. Create problems 0.1% of the time over a course of years.
Large companies with installed base in the billions will choose to not do this. Because a 0.1% of 1 billion is 1 million disgruntled customers and calls to support, which is very expensive to deal with.

There is a different kind of tradeoff , where also , increasingly companies make bad choices. For example:
- Introduce a feature that adds significant functionality
2. But - it requires the user to follow detailed instructions, and requires reading ability.

Nope - not worth the risk. most people wont follow directions and call in with problems. Forget it.

So - we get dumbed down products, with capabilities far below what the thing is designed to do, with a Nanny-State like dumbed down interface.
Constant inconveniencing and harrassment is OK. But random 0.01% chance of issues is not.

This is the opportunity for open source in general and MX in particular.