alt Hacker NewsThis is literally evidence of stuff being designed to fail. An extra diode costs less than a cent at production scale. This was a manufacturing choice, not an error.
Replies
Don't underestimate the appeal of saving one cent per unit. So long as the costs are externalised, anyway...
It’s not exactly designed to fail, they just don’t care. If they could add a one-cent part that made it fail sooner, they wouldn’t do that either.
Capitalist profit motive strikes again. The invisible hand expands tech and the visible hand keeps making tech worse.
People usually respond to this by saying that it would be absurd to suggest the company did this for its own benefit, when anyone who engineers knows these are often caused by revising design to minimize costs... and increase profits.
Eh, I don't agree.
LEDs are diodes (Light emitting diode). Certainly this was a cost saving measure, but it's not a bad assumption that the LED wouldn't allow reverse current flow.