10 years is way too little for a digital device to become declared unsupported and handicapped artificially and by force

[Real_Smoky]

I volunteer at a place where we restore old desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets and then forward them to people in need who can't afford them. Many of the Windows laptops are over 10 years old, up to 15 in some cases. Sadly, we can't afford the time to restore devices that are 20 years or older, but at least in theory, they could be brought back to life and be used.
 

On the tablet side of things, Apple or Samsung, things are different. A couple weeks ago, I had an iPad Mini 1st gen that was borderline useless. One no longer can update the software, download any apps, or use most of the provided apps. It can solely be used for browsing Wikipedia or watching YouTube videos in a horrendously low quality, 360 or so, while the screen is almost 1080p. The device looks like new, feels like new, the battery works fantastically, yet the device is relegated to e-waste because using it only for the camera and browser is something nobody really wants. If the people could at least download newer versions of YouTube, a game or a navigation system, the device could still be used.
 

Another case with Samsung as the representative of the Android side. "Hurr durr Android freedom no walled garden"-BUUUULLSHIIIIT! The device is barely 10 years old and stuck on Android 4. You can't update the software, you can't update the apps, the apps refuse to work in their old versions, and you can't update the Playstore. The device is basically e-waste. THEORETICALLY you can install LineageOS or some other bullcrap, but doing that on an Android device is 4 times as difficult as installing Windows on a normal PC and nobody wants to deal with that crap except for the hardcore enthusiasts. The device is relegated to e-waste for NO REASON other than Samsung's greed, and Apple's greed, and general capitalist-corporate-greed.
 

What prompted me to write this rant was a random comment I stumbled upon while searching for a solution. The comment went something like "There is no good reason to use an Android 4 device at [current year], move on and buy a new device."
 

The honestly just plain stupid people like the commenter are the reason why modern devices suck, die way too soon, or are killed off by force; they are the reason why fighting climate change is an impossible task and why humanity is going to suffer a genocide executed by the fucking Sun.
 

There are many, many, many good reasons why you would want to use such an old device, and I will list some of them:
you want to experience old games or video media in the way it was experienced in the past, similarly to why people still use MP3 players or record players;
you want to experience using older versions of existing software for the thrill of it;
you are actively using a software that no longer receives support but works on that device, but you don't want to deal with all your other apps not working (might disproportionally affect people with disabilities);
you want to have a functioning backup device;
you want to give an older device to little children or people with disabilities and not be sorry if they accidentally break it;
you want to experiment with software and hardware on an older device so you are not financially ruined if you break it;
and the most important of all: you don't want to create unnecessary e-waste when you can use a device that still fucking works.

Do I think companies should be forced to support a 10 year old device?

HELL NO! I can understand that companies need to innovate and earn money and sell new products. I want them to do that.

What I don't want them to do is to wall-off functioning devices so that is nearly impossible for casual users to install an OS. People still use Windows XP era machines (both with XP and other OSs, regardless if Windows or Linux distros) for various reasons, including creating backups, digitizing analog media, or for retro gaming.
 

Companies should be forced to unlock bootloaders and to make installing an alternative OS super-easy and even provide tutorials on how to do it once they decide that their old device is not making them money. Companies should be forced to provide documentation. Companies should provide minimal server infrastructure to update the software to the newest version or release the needed files to the public so we can store it somewhere else.
 

If a company can't provide the minimum of keeping an old device somewhat running after 10 years, if that is really the straw that will break the corporate overlord's back, then I not only don't care - I want that company fucking gone off the face of the Earth, never to be remembered again.

 

[OhioYJ]

Lineage provides step by step instructions on installing their OS. Generally unsupported devices have install guides by the developers. Its pretty straight forward, flash recovery, flash the OS. Honestly installing Windows can be more involved sometimes.

 

I have Android devices that are 11 years old still going thanks to the open source community. 

[Needfuldoer]

Do you daily drive devices that are more than 10 years old?

 

Mobile devices evolved by leaps and bounds in the late 2000s / early 2010s.

[Levent]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

Lineage provides step by step instructions on installing their OS. Generally unsupported devices have install guides by the developers. Its pretty straight forward, flash recovery, flash the OS. Honestly installing Windows can be more involved sometimes.

 

I have Android devices that are 11 years old still going thanks to the open source community. 

I like lineageOS exists BUT there are drawbacks to using those. For example, my banking apps were still not liking that I am on LOS even with all the things they said that supposed to fix it. Netflix is another story because you will degrade or loose factory level widevine certification.

[OhioYJ]

30 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Do you daily drive devices that are more than 10 years old?

Only devices I own that old at this point are tablets. The answer is still no, as I own tablets that are much faster (Also running Lineage).

 

30 minutes ago, Levent said:

I like lineageOS exists BUT there are drawbacks to using those. For example, my banking apps were still not liking that I am on LOS even with all the things they said that supposed to fix it. Netflix is another story because you will degrade or loose factory level widevine certification.

 

While this varies from device to device, it's been quite a while since Widevine was even a concern. All of my unlocked, rooted Lineage devices still carry L1 Widevine certification. 

 

As for banking / payment apps, from what I've read this depends on the company. Everything I need use works. 

 

Also there are some other alternatives that may help with problematic  apps? Although I haven't needed to try as usually rooting and hiding things works for me. I'll preface this with a gigantic WARNING, you better know what you are doing. However it is possible to relock the bootloader with Lineage installed. 

[Caroline]

LG Mobile died and left millions of devices with no updates AND a firmware lock that's impossible to bypass except in some very old devices (Android 2.2/4.0), so you can't even install alt roms to those things.

Lineage isn't a magic bullet that solves everything, only a tiny amount of devices are compatible with it, it's mostly for high end/premium lineups of phones from the big manufacturers, so if you have a low end phone or something noname you're stuck with ewaste if there's no way to update the software anymore. Same goes for Cyanogen or any other alternative Android with or without Google services.

 

Ignoring all the Google stuff the #1 reason I don't have a smartphone it's obsolescence, living in a third world shithole I don't have access to high end devices where I could install custom ROMs after official support ends, and I know buying "cheap" (in US prices) noname China devices would be wasting my money because they're the worst kind of phones you can imagine, we're talking 4GB storage and 512MB RAM stuff that lags if you open the calculator, and they're not cheap at all here with one being ~$50 considering the average income is somewhere around $25/mo for a full-time job. It's that bad.

Reason #2 is I don't need one, I mean it's not that complicated, I already have a computer to surf the net, it's not justified.

 

Fun story time.

41 minutes ago, Real_Smoky said:

People still use Windows XP era machines (both with XP and other OSs, regardless if Windows or Linux distros) for various reasons, including creating backups, digitizing analog media, or for retro gaming.

The hospital my mom works at runs DOS and 9x machines in a local network because they just work. I get to fix some of those from time to time, most technicians are getting to retirement age and young people don't care or have no clue how it all works, they're already used to phones because it's what most families can afford (almost no one uses computers at home, and "computer class" is only a thing in a few select schools)

It's not uncommon to see boxes of floppy disks at government offices (social security, taxes, education, etc.) because most software was bought during the 80s and is written for early versions of DOS and apparently we don't have any programmers here that can replicate the same but for Windows or *nix.

Businesses have to file taxes using typewriters and put Lotus copies in a 720K floppy as backup. At work most of the basement is room after room with shelves, cabinets and countless boxes filled with stacks of papers that they MUST keep from day 1 until closure.

 

Anything involving the goverment is insanely inefficient and tedious for everyone involved but they're still stuck in the 80s because that way millions of jobs still have a reason to exist.

Think you have 100 people filling forms by hand in big books, then 100 typists that copy that information using machines, and finally 100 secretaries -"IBM girls" we call them- that transfer that to a digital format, so, 300 jobs instead of 30, or 3.

 

1 hour ago, Real_Smoky said:

The honestly just plain stupid people like the commenter are the reason why modern devices suck, die way too soon, or are killed off by force; they are the reason why fighting climate change is an impossible task and why humanity is going to suffer a genocide executed by the fucking Sun.

Why is my man Sun the bad guy here?

Oh my sweet summer child, why do you think the billionaires, trillionaires and megacorporations are so interested in rocket science, the Moon and Mars now? because they wanna help us? nah fam they're looking for a way out, they've realised underground vaults and bunkers won't be enough if the world burns or freezes in nuclear winter, and they're aiming for other celestial bodies now.

And morons clap and cheer when Musk's rockets land successfully.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

15 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Only devices I own that old at this point are tablets. The answer is still no, as I own tablets that are much faster (Also running Lineage).

You see, I don't really understand the mentality with this. So sending devices to be recycled is considered wasteful and not environmentally friendly. Yet hoarding devices that yes still work, but you're not using daily is somehow not wasteful? 

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

 Yet hoarding devices that yes still work, but you're not using daily is somehow not wasteful? 

I'd say not in my case. I routinely lend and give out devices to friends and family that need them. So my devices generally find a home at some point. There's only a select few I've held onto. 

 

Oddly enough I gave away a OnePlus 8T recently with Lineage and offered to flash it back to stock for the new owner (a friend of the family who broke their phone), and they actually preferred LOS. Brought it back to be updated to LOS 21 recently. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

I'd say not in my case. I routinely lend and give out devices to friends and family that need them. So my devices generally find a home at some point. There's only a select few I've held onto. 

 

Oddly enough I gave away a OnePlus 8T recently with Lineage and offer to flash it back to stock for the new owner (a friend of the family who their phone), and they actually preferred LOS. Brought it back to be updated to LOS 21 recently. 

Ok as long as someone else is dailying them. But I've heard of so many people who say they save devices from landfill only to have them sit in a drawer, closet, or be on display. 

[Real_Smoky]

19 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Do you daily drive devices that are more than 10 years old?

 

Mobile devices evolved by leaps and bounds in the late 2000s / early 2010s.

 

If I couldn't afford newer devices, I would love daily driving 10 year old stuff. And if I was a kid with little or no toys due to feeling one of the wars of today, I would love having a 10 year old tablet to qatch vids.

 

I used a P9 Lite for a short while after my phone died and I could see using it for longer if I couldn't afford something better. I know people who daily drive such phones. I use a tablet from 2016 to watch videos and movies and/or as a secondary screen, as well as for Google drive. I would still be using a laptop from 2012/2013 if I wasn't basically gifted an upgrade and my desktop is from 2015. My family members mostly use laptops and desktops from 2005-2010. 

 

All of those devices are still usable unless:

1) the battery deteriorated, which is a gamble and may or may not have happened due to many factors;

2) artificially handicapped by not allowing apps to work in the form of their old version, but forcing users to update them knowing that they can't.

 

This isn't about me - although it does partially affect me. This is about those that capitalism doesn't care about at best and utterly despises them at worst. It is about single oarent families and migrants that think twice about spending every dollar, about migrants and orphans, about people who can't afford buying a 50 dollar device that is basically an essential need today.

 

At the end of the day, "let the market decide" - companies should stop deliberately trying to game the market and scam consumers by locking their devices out of updates AND disabling apps that are not updated.

 

Just imagine if Ford had the technology to disable your 15 year old car because FORD thinks that the experience is no longer good enough. 

 

And no, LineageOS is not a solution to the problem. Nobody can expect regular people to flash a custom OS on a device that has layers and layers of protections to stop you from doing that. The people at my association and I could technically learn how to do it, and for a time a few colleagues did, but in my opinion it is a proceedure with very mixed results that shouldn't be necessary. There is no reason YouTube works on Windows Vista PCs in a browser, but the app doesn't work on a 10 year old hpone while the browser experience is significantly and deliberately worse.

 

[seanondemand]

Cool rant. Real old man yells at cloud energy. If this is how you feel, technology is not for you. 
 

10 years has been ancient history for as long as computers have existed. This is like being upset Windows 98 didn’t support the IBM PC. Technology moves on - security and encryption are improved; new video codecs bring higher quality at lower bitrates; new features rely on new hardware accelerators, and old hardware falls behind. It’s the way it’s always been. If it weren’t, that’s like saying science and engineering should hold itself back, and it’s just not going to, and it shouldn’t. If that’s a problem, should probably just find yourself a cabin in Montana. 

[Commodus]

22 hours ago, Real_Smoky said:

 

If I couldn't afford newer devices, I would love daily driving 10 year old stuff. And if I was a kid with little or no toys due to feeling one of the wars of today, I would love having a 10 year old tablet to qatch vids.

 

I used a P9 Lite for a short while after my phone died and I could see using it for longer if I couldn't afford something better. I know people who daily drive such phones. I use a tablet from 2016 to watch videos and movies and/or as a secondary screen, as well as for Google drive. I would still be using a laptop from 2012/2013 if I wasn't basically gifted an upgrade and my desktop is from 2015. My family members mostly use laptops and desktops from 2005-2010. 

 

All of those devices are still usable unless:

1) the battery deteriorated, which is a gamble and may or may not have happened due to many factors;

2) artificially handicapped by not allowing apps to work in the form of their old version, but forcing users to update them knowing that they can't.

 

This isn't about me - although it does partially affect me. This is about those that capitalism doesn't care about at best and utterly despises them at worst. It is about single oarent families and migrants that think twice about spending every dollar, about migrants and orphans, about people who can't afford buying a 50 dollar device that is basically an essential need today.

 

At the end of the day, "let the market decide" - companies should stop deliberately trying to game the market and scam consumers by locking their devices out of updates AND disabling apps that are not updated.

 

Just imagine if Ford had the technology to disable your 15 year old car because FORD thinks that the experience is no longer good enough. 

 

And no, LineageOS is not a solution to the problem. Nobody can expect regular people to flash a custom OS on a device that has layers and layers of protections to stop you from doing that. The people at my association and I could technically learn how to do it, and for a time a few colleagues did, but in my opinion it is a proceedure with very mixed results that shouldn't be necessary. There is no reason YouTube works on Windows Vista PCs in a browser, but the app doesn't work on a 10 year old hpone while the browser experience is significantly and deliberately worse.

 

I don't know if I'd call it outrageous, but at least we're edging closer to that goal. Apple, Google, and Samsung now routinely provide several years of OS updates, and they're getting better about usability for those oldest devices.

 

There are some practical challenges, though, and I don't think we should entirely fault the companies. Mobile batteries still struggle to last 10 years, and that kind of software maintenance schedule demands a lot of staff. Also, consider how much a typical phone's performance and capabilities have changed in a decade; it's only been in the past few years that things have tapered off. Supporting that wide a variety isn't easy.

 

We also have to learn some lessons about an overdependence on legacy support. Microsoft's biggest problem for a while was its "legacy above all" mindset, where it was more important to keep old customers happy than to move things forward. That's how you got businesses refusing to update to Windows 10 because they needed Windows 7 for the XP mode to run their NT 4.0-era database software. There's a healthy balance between strong support and prodding users to make some frankly overdue updates.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

12 hours ago, seanondemand said:

10 years has been ancient history for as long as computers have existed. 

False. A 10 years old PC is perfectly usable today. Even as far back as the 8086 you will find times in which essentially the same processor would remain ubiquitous for a decade or more.

And that's just computers, which until very recently were in a very infant stage. If we take "technology" in all of its breadth, the case for your ignorant statement becomes far worse.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 4/20/2024 at 6:18 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Ok as long as someone else is dailying them. But I've heard of so many people who say they save devices from landfill only to have them sit in a drawer, closet, or be on display. 

Still much better than the landfill, polluting our food, and intoxicating the inevitable underage scavengers that roam the third-world dumps where the "recycled" (LOL) electronics end up...

 

 

[rikitikitavi]

On 4/21/2024 at 9:10 PM, seanondemand said:

Cool rant. Real old man yells at cloud energy. If this is how you feel, technology is not for you. 
 

10 years has been ancient history for as long as computers have existed. This is like being upset Windows 98 didn’t support the IBM PC. Technology moves on - security and encryption are improved; new video codecs bring higher quality at lower bitrates; new features rely on new hardware accelerators, and old hardware falls behind. It’s the way it’s always been. If it weren’t, that’s like saying science and engineering should hold itself back, and it’s just not going to, and it shouldn’t. If that’s a problem, should probably just find yourself a cabin in Montana. 

Unless you need the bleeding edge, you start to stretch the definitions of old and 'ancient history'.

 

For a regular Joe who uses the basics - a 10yo pc will doubtfully hinder his life. Afaik, a 10yo MacBook Air can still handle bare minimum, with macOS still getting the crucial security updates once in a while.

A 10yo iPhone 6S also gets the security updates afaik and is usable.

 

But OMG, these devices can't play AV1 without chugging the battery like crazy and can not handle 4k encoding/decoding...

 

On 4/22/2024 at 9:37 AM, SpaceGhostC2C said:

infant stage

... of tech is mainly the reason why 10, 5 or even less years can become the performance cutoff.