[betwixthewires]

It's not just auto manufacturers. It seems literally everything is being designed with a philosophy of "fuck the user" in mind. I cannot think of a single thing more complicated than a concrete block that functions better now than previous versions did 10 years ago, and I'm sure there are some things that work at least as good, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

[phkahler]

>> I cannot think of a single thing more complicated than a concrete block that functions better now than previous versions did 10 years ago...

I've got news for you. My uncle worked in construction most his life. He told me the concrete isn't as good today as it used to be. He said in some places for shipping they "blow it around". Meaning you don't put it on a ship using a conveyor, you do something similar to blowing dust through a pipe? I never asked for more detail. He thought the handling was exposing it to humidity or in some way degrading the concrete. This would be another case of prioritizing cost/efficiency over the customer.

So even your humble concrete block might not be as good as they used to make em'

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Quite a lot of electronics test & measurement equipment. Notably modern spectrum analyzers & network analyzers. Also modern arbitrary waveform generators & RF generators are vastly better than a decade ago. Other bits haven't improved nearly as much, eg the HP 3458A is still one of the best meters in the world. The Fluke 5720A Calibrator is likewise an old workhorse.

[betwixthewires]

I forgot about engineering hardware. I've used some of that stuff, lots of it is good but tons of it is vendor lock in stuff as well, NI comes to mind.

[ClumsyPilot]

My building had a dialing system replaced with one that uses a phone line to call a mobile of each resident. It can also only assing one number. Now I get the call at work if my wife orders pizza, or if i am out of the country.

It also doesnt work at all if i am in tube, or when my building forgets to pay phone bill, or movike network craps out

[betwixthewires]

I'm glad to say I don't have any shit like this that I have to deal with. I've got a phone and a laptop and that's it. My car basically has a fuel controller and ABS controller in it. Aftermarket MP3 playing head unit with an aux jack.

Whatever benefits the tech firms and salespeople sold you (not literally you, anyone reading) on all this shit, if you have this stuff in your life I guarantee you your life is more stressful than mine because of it.

I'm to the point where I only buy used stuff period. Basically food and underwear have to be new. I don't think I've bought a brand new anything in over 5 years. I don't know if I ever will if this trend continues, proprietary single serve coffee pouches, internet connected stovetops, TVs that show ads separate from the broadcast, cars that track your movements and sell them to data brokers, touch screen everything, how many screens does a single person need?

[indigo945]

But in ten years, all the used stuff will also be fully-electronic vendor-locked garbage, just older and with the cloud services down, and hence unusable.

[can16358p]

I think it's more like as things get more complex, there are many more edge cases to check and most are very unlikely to happen statistically/practically so manufacturers don't put enough thinkin/design effort in those "details".

Until, of course, it does.

[betwixthewires]

I don't buy it.

They're literally engineering shit people don't need now. In virtually every product. And doing UI redesigns on things that change the user friendly UX, often breaking it.

I remember looking forward to browser updates, OS updates, the next generation hardware whatever. Things used to actually get better. I actually got a new phone the other day with a newer android version, never mind that there's a fucking hole in the screen, when I changed my screen brightness there was a deliberate animated delay to the brightness changing with the slider. Seriously, who the fuck is making decisions like this?

90% of things don't need to get more complex. A touch screen on a fridge, speakers in your car that get louder as you accelerate, Bluetooth speakers that need software updates, these are not improvements to the products in any real way whatsoever.

[zerocount]

I agree. My theory is that this is all 'busy' work. For some reason or another, there's just nothing else for the employees to do.