| The manufacturers are benefiting, but’s its reductive to say the benefit is solely keeping the walled garden. I work in consumer electronics (but not phones). Here’s a breakdown of your stakeholders when you’re going through the design -ID, who have a particular vision of what the device should look and feel like. They probably want things thin -Manufacturing/automation, who wants something production line friendly. They’ll probably be angry if you replace a stamped adhesive sheet with 6 screws -You and your manager, who want you to keep COGS as low as possible -The reliability team, who will raise a fuss if you keep failing your drop tests and water/salt spray ingress tests -HW compliance, who aside from ROHS FCC certs are mostly concerned with battery safety -Whoever is keeper of the PRD (PM, lead engineer). This is where concerns about user friendliness of the assembly will show up Given all the other things you need to juggle, and how many of them can be solved with judicious use of adhesives, the line item about user replaceable batteries is going to drop off very quickly at most companies. You can argue that this PRD doesn’t capture your needs, or that incentives are misaligned, and that’s fair. What you’re looking for is a company with industrial designers and product managers that deeply care about repairability and there aren’t many. But the status quo isn’t a nefarious plot, they’re just prioritizing other consumer and company needs over this one particular consumer need. |
>over this one particular consumer need.
Sorry, i'm glad the needs of everyone trying to make money off me and everyone adding to the worth of their shares comes before the consumers you're squeezing every fucking penny out of.
>More corporate marketing bullshit
Yes...things looking sleek and shiny as opposed to functional and long lasting is exactly what marketers tell consumers they want so they waste more money lining shareholders' pockets.