zlacker

>>pictur+(OP)
This enshittifcation is endemic. Corporations cannot just release a good product and support it. The better the product is and the larger the customer base becomes, the higher the likelihood that some business planner is going to see dollar signs and try to squeeze the product for everything it’s worth. And every time this ruins the product. And we’re here with a proprietary phone OS and proprietary apps. Proprietary firmwares on proprietary hardware. And we are completely at the whim of these companies.

And the option is what, buy a Zigbee dongle and a raspberry pi run some code written by unpaid enthusiasts? 3D print a case for it and mount it on the wall, running updates and fixing it ever few months when some package update breaks it?

I like the concept of lights that run from an app. I don’t have any of the physical Hue switches for my system and it’s fine. But I do not want an app that abuses me, and I do not want to maintain some fragile project made from slapped together code. I want robust open hardware with open source software.

I’m convinced that we can achieve this, but it won’t be with the current model of business and engineering we have today.

>>Taylor+We
The alternative is government standards. You have power outlets you can interchangeably plug different appliances into. Why? Standards. Let there be a standard for color-controllable light sources that ensures interoperability of components, and then there will be competition to hit price-vs-shittiness balances suiting multiple parties.

>>dzdt+kj
Before concluding that the NHS health record is the only option, you should consider industry standards like USB, which in some cases have worked well. We must have a failure-and-improvement cycle in case the standard is bad and fundamentally doesn’t work. We forgo that cycle when the government takes up the cause, even worse yet when the regulators are captured by some collusive fiend.

>>the_op+em
USB is now a pile of incompatible standards in a trench coat, holding hands with a menagerie of incompatible connectors in another trench coat, all wrapped in a third larger trench coat and claiming to be a single universal standard.

>>taneq+Go
Yeah, I was going to say the same, just not as creatively.

USB is not the poster child for successful industry-led standards.

>>bernie+Tp
What’s an alternative system that’s better?

Apple’s Lightning has some of the worst connectors ever. I have about 5 USB-C cables and about 10 Lightning cables in my home. Each Lightning cable cost me more than 2x rhe most expensive USB-C cable bought from a convenience store and yet 4/5 of the Lightning cables have their wiring inside exposed while the USB-C ones could pass off as new.

The only issue I’ve ever had with a device on the USB-C side is 1 cable that is incapable of charging my wife’s macbook.

Guess how many of my Apple made Lightning cables are capable of charging my wife’s MacBook.