alt Hacker NewsIMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.
I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.
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We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.
Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.
Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).
My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..