Seems like many companies product quality has plummeted over the last few years. For example, Google (despite its flaws), used to have good products and services. Now they are virtually unusable.
My doctor sent me forms to my Gmail and I never got them. I looked it up and apparently Gmail has the document provider blocked so you literally cannot get medical forms. Stuff like this happens all the time now! Their search engine is nothing but sponsored ads now.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I just think it’s funny that capitalism ends up making much much worse products over time.
You won’t buy new products if your existing products don’t break.
They also have an incentive to innovate or at least to provide a quality service while they’re growing.
But once they have a monopoly?
Why bother with the expense. If anyone comes up with a better alternative, the monopoly can buy the new technology / product / etc and shelve it, or just crush the new competitor.
That’s if crushing is even necessary. No competitor can get anywhere without capital: old capital is not always keen on investing in new industries; and new capital is not going to invest in the competition. There are some exceptions, but it depends on the market.
This is exactly what google does now. They buy up all competition and either shelve it completely, change it to extract as much profit as possible (usually ruining it), or never update it.
That doesn’t surprise me at all. I bet they bleed universities / colleges for new research that never makes it to the public.
There are lots of fairly good google services that just become unusable over time, like blogger. Never updated. Never replaced.
Google also shelves many of its own products, including some that are actually useful.
There aren’t even new products
What!? The iPhone with the longer screen and rearranged camera lenses isn’t a feat of engineering compared to the iPhone with the slightly smaller screen?! But the shiny commercials said it was!
I’m so sick of Apple’s constant bugs that I contemplated going to Android. I briefly got on my moms Android phone and it was full of junk! Love how there is just a choice between two bad products and you can’t even use a Huwai phone in the US.
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Or you can use a PinePhone Pro and run an OS that’s actually good, with more customizability than Android can dream of.
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It is. Mainline GNU/Linux is far better than Android. It is faster, has more features, provides much more freedom, is more open, has more customizability, etc.
You’re right about that, but they’re getting better. The PinePhone Pro is finally getting hardware accelerated android apps via Waydroid, so pretty soon, you’ll be able to get the best of both worlds. Also, the cameras are working now.
I totally get it, but I still think android is the future OS (and it already is the most used OS on the planet).
Google’s decision to keep the majority of android open source (AOSP) was a business decision, because it valued international growth and spread, and they knowingly allowed int’l carriers to add what they want (whereas apple told them to take it or leave it, and iOS is staying closed source). If the goal though was to eventually pull a microsoft and force you to use their proprietary addons software, that ship has long since sailed, since there are too many variants and people to keep happy all over the world now. I genuinely do think that google as a company is smarter than the US government, they’re an international company and care more about not alienating int’l carriers than they do pleasing the US gov.
Don’t get me wrong, I 100% think google is spying, and collaborating with the US government, but they’re doing through google services and gmail, not through AOSP and all the android variants.
Even the chinese made variants like MIUI and Huawei’s harmonyOS are just android variants based on AOSP.
If google tries some fuckery, or tries to close source AOSP, which is entirely possible, then a coalition of Chinese, Indian, and possibly European countries would pick up where google left off and fork AOSP and create their own standard.
Never mind Apple implementing features 2 years after every other major manufacturer already did, and also a bit worse. Bruh why do Americans like those shits, is it really just status?
It very much is status. Every time I visit bourgeois liberal cities, its iphones and teslas everywhere. They sell identities to rich liberals who have none of their own.
Most of the people I know with are just still with them because at this point, they’re around the same price as other phones, and they’re used to how iPhones work. There used to be a huge brand loyalty thing. It was weird. It got enough people used to them that they just don’t wanna relearn another system.
Oh that’s true, Xiaomi is banned in the US or something
Huawei is banned. Xiaomi won’t sell here because the only way to get any market share is through the carriers, and they don’t want to partner with the carriers. Understandable. Most people here don’t want to partner with the carriers, either.
That’s strange, Mexican carriers have carried them for a few years now (at a slightly inflated price, though)
That slightly might be the issue. Carriers here wouldn’t allow a phone significantly cheaper than the ones already here.
I’m in the US and have a Xiaomi, but you’re right, the carriers here don’t carry them, you have to order them from China or an ebay reseller and hope your carrier lets you bring on the phone. Still worth it, its a more reliable samsung that costs hundreds less.
Is there any research you did to give you certainty that the phone model you chose would work on your carrier? Assuming technical compatibility, is a CN phone guaranteed to work on your network? Or are u.s. carriers playing games like banning MACs (or equivalent) of certain manufacturer’s devices?
Thanks!
I make sure I use a carrier that allows bring your own phone, and made sure that the network they use is supported by the phone. This site is helpful: http://kimovil.com/
I meant things like Google search engine, but yeah
There’s a lightbulb invented in 1901 that has been running continuously since then.
Woah. Simply… woah.
right, where’s the mArKEt INceNtivE to make things good?
I’d say this process started (or at least seriously escalated) in the 70s-90s when companies realised they could build their brands completely independently of what their actual products are, where they’re made, what’s in them.
Naomi Klein has some terrible shitty takes sometimes but her book No Logo is a great explanation of the transformation from companies to Brands™® https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Logo