Right to repair and right to information though are another.
This also means guaranteed minimum supported lifetimes, access to documentation, system upgrades, and the like.
As for laptops: I've been actively putting off upgrading for numerous reasons including the fact that no current offerings really seem to suit my needs, wants, or reasonable expectations, but bullshit games (factory-installed spyware, Lenovo, craptacular ergonomics (Apple keyboards, strips), and BDSM bootloaders (Android) leave me feeling physically ill.
I was reminiscing earlier that in his 1976 book Imperial Earth, Arthur C. Clarke more-or-less pressages the smartphone, with his minisec, though with some glaring distinctions.
There's a physical keyboard (the 'E' key is mentioned as being worn), devices are durable enough to be intergenerational hand-me-downs (the protagonist inherits his father's old device), and apparently the economics and business models of manufacturing, servicing, upgrading, and developing for the platforms have been solved, as they're never mentioned.
It's the business models of hardware, software, and services which are killing us. To the point of creating actively shitty products and business practices.
Upvoted for this, lol. I think using a lot of products are essentially becoming a BDSM game nowadays... i.e. It has some broken useless features because of some bullshit due to the marketing department. To improve something, you would need to hack it to bypass some arbitrary restrictions first, and many enjoy this process of hacking...
Those hackers are heros, but it would be the best if some arbitrary problems are not deliberately introduced by the manufacturers in the first place.
> It's the business models of hardware, software, and services which are killing us. To the point of creating actively shitty products and business practices.
Do you know how to keep your stuff from being easily cloned by Chinese?
You make it 'cloudy' by baking all your features in a closed and proprietary API on your premises. That's great for the company as it provides significant leverage against external competitors AND naughty customers. Bans can be instilled by "block user and hardware_id".
Of course, when that API goes away, so does utilizing any of that hardware. And what does that mean? Your $X00 device is now worthy of a doorstop or a space-filling-device in the trash.
I love the new Macbook keyboards. At least, I prefer the keyboard on my 2019 Macbook Air to that on my 2015 Macbook Pro. There's obviously an element of personal preference there, but I don't think it's fair to say that the ergonomics are "craptacular".
(The reliability issues are another matter, of course. We'll have to see if the 4th gen has finally fixed those.)
My first laptop was a Toshiba. It died a month after the year long warranty and would have cost more than a new laptop to get replacement parts for. So, I'm already on the don't buy Toshiba bandwagon.
You know, I've wondered about this too. I wonder how effective their DMCA process is -- but while they host some of my stuff, I actually want them to. Obviously I don't have standing to try and find out on someone else's material.
I just wish their archive (Wayback Machine specifically) was easier to fulltext search.
Yes! It's exactly what I was thinking about. But uploading them as normal books would make them difficult to find, at least we need an index. If someone is going to do it systematically, contacting LibGen is surely a possible way to go.
Sure, IPFS doesn't offer anonymity at the protocol layer, but one can always operate a service anonymously (socially, not technically) by hosting it at a suspicious Russian/Romanian provider. BitTorrent taught us, once the materials spread, it wouldn't matter anymore.
What alternative is there? It seems all brands only sell cheap stuff.
I wonder if Thinkpads really survived this after it was bought by lenovo. Maybe high end Dell laptops are durable? ASUS? System76? Honestly I don't know what brand to choose from, and I think I would prefer not to invest in a new laptop if it's not durable, and keep using desktop PCs.
