It’s time for some right-of-first-sale legislation that kills off the subscription-for-everything scam.
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It should be illegal for a lack of a subscription to prevent operation of something you’ve bought.
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Same goes for requiring connectivity.
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If the subscription service terminates, reverse-engineering to maintain continuing operations should be protected by law, and the manufacturer should be required to provide the specifications to the public.
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DRM to prevent access to subscribable features should be illegal.
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The way I read that title: Apple and Samsung stopped innovating, now sales aren’t growing, so it’s time for enshittification.
Samsung added a 10x telephoto lens and i was excited to finally get that over the regular 2x or 3x of the time.
Then they stopped making them and went back to 5x.
This phone still works great
A 10x zoom might tempt me to upgrade… Not much else would.
How good is the lens ?
Ive really enjoyed using it, pictures come out really nice. It helps to have something to steady yourself on though if you want the best outcome as your small movements move the window much more.
Subscriptions were supposed to replace cable, then software, then heated seats, now phones. Funny how every innovation somehow ends with paying forever. If your business model needs me renting hardware I already carry everywhere, maybe the product isn’t improving fast enough to justify buying it?
You should buy it. Every time. Fuck subscriptions.
some subscriptions are fine though, like email or a vpn.
you could argue there should be no need for a vpn but… it is what it is
Services as subscriptions: fine. They are ongoing agreements that require an unspecifiable amount of labor, it makes sense to pay as you go.
Subscription goods? Fuck that. If I am in posession of it and responsible for maintaining it in a specific state of operation and quality, I basically own it anyway.
Charging me monthly for a pocket-sized computer with the added stipulations that the seller gets to dictate what I’m allowed to do with it, probably installs spyware on it (on top of the OEM and OS spyware), and if I break it (or otherwise violate the terms of use) I have to buy it anyway and they still get to keep it? They’ve basically reinvented a mix of payphones and library PCs, but more invasive and more expensive
They’ve basically reinvented a mix of payphones and library PCs, but more invasive and more expensive
No this isn’t even the same thing. Library PC is made available to you for free (paid via taxes). Payphone was a bit a different breast, as they supposed to make phone service available at any place when before we had cellphones, although they were also available for free (you paid for making calls though).
Over here they want to remove ownership. Instead of owning a house, you rent an apartment, instead of owning a car you pay to use self driving one, instead of owning a movie or music (yes, I know) you pay for streaming service, and now you won’t even own the computer in your pocket.
Basically they want society where we don’t own anything and only pay subscription fees to live. This push toward that world is called technofeudalism. Only billionaires own things and we are just serfs at their mercy.
Lots of vpns claims are fake but whatever.
yeah i just wanna hide my ip from random websites, they don’t need to know my ip
i couldn’t care less about what vpn providers say, i don’t even know what my vpn provider (proton) “promises”.
With smartphones current prices and componants becoming more expensive they are realizing not a lot of people will buy a smartphone costing more than 1500 dollars. Especially when hardware is now good enough and people are starting to try to keep their phone as long as possible.
Making you rent your phone allow to hide how much it’s going to cost you and ensure them a steady cash income.
This!
I buy one smartphone per decade. Why would I want to lease it instead?
Think of the recurring opportunity for emails about price increases and downstream shareholder value!
And why burden yourself with ownership really
If you cannot control the software on the device — including the OS — then you never bought it. You paid for it, but you did not buy it and therefore do not own it.
The only thing prompting phone replacement for me was battery life. And nearly all phones have shit ability to replace batteries (for now - EU rules incoming).
I bought a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS. I’ve left Big Tech behind. And I have a phone where I can easily replace the components. I don’t want to swap devices for 4-5 years, which makes ownership far more cost effective than leasing.
Also – with leasing, what happens when the renter is done with it? E waste, just like we have today.
Biggest issue is software support. You really do not want to run your banking app on an older, unpatched Android version
Or at least that’s what big tech wants you to think
Don’t worry the banking software running those apps is far older, unpatched, and just as vulnerable.
No they just sell the devices to the secondary market
Oneplus 13 has two day battery life for me. Best phone I’ve ever owned. But I heard they are not going to release oneplus phones in Europe anymore so that sucks a lot. I dont want anything else.
Absolutely fucking not. Im not going to lease something that contains my private information ever.
You will own nothing and like it
No, and also fuck off with that.
Never do that. You should always fully own and control your communication and computation devices. It’s a matter of privacy.
Even if you buy an iPhone outright you don’t fully control it.
That’s why I don’t buy Apple products…
I waited 8 year to get a newer phoner that was better than my previous phone in all respects at the same price. And even then it was mostly a convenience upgrade because my old phone was still working well.
Why the hell would it be worth it to lease a phone?
It depends a lot on how heavily you use your phones. I’m a heavy user and my batteries degrade heavily in 2-3 years. That leads to overheating, poor performance, and of course poor battery life.
The cost of replacing a battery is high for most phones. Sometimes higher than buying a new phone at a similar level of performance.
I’m doing 1-2 battery cycles per day. A light user might go through battery cycles at a quarter of my rate, and would not have those problems.
Right to repair solves that, by mandating against designs which make simple replacements exorbitantly expensive for no good reason.
Was high. Europe changed the law <3
Seeing is believing, they probably find some loophole to fuck with the system.
They will try to male the battery in only compatible with onemodel or some kind like this.
Maybe we just need more affordable phones.
There were lots of affordable phones before the AI companies bought up all of the RAM and flash.
I wrote this comment on a $150 phone which for all the purposes that I use it for, performs exactly as well as an $800 iPhone.
I bought my Samsung for $240 CAD, brand new, not refurbished.
I can’t tell the difference from an expensive phone. Less camera lens? I don’t understand why other phones are $1000 to $2000. Processor speed? On a phone? I’m not running games on this thing except online chess. It plays YouTube without ads. It makes calls and sends texts.
I just don’t get it.
Past $800, you’re not getting a better processor. The base iPhone and Galaxy offer the same chip as the Pro Max and Ultra, respectively, in most generations.
You’re only getting more cameras or screen. The $2000 ones fold.
Thata why apple made their new cheap MacBook out of some phone processors but wont let us have a dual OS on the phone if we plug it into a monitor. Because its powerful enough to do that, but we wont buy both if we can.
