The poverty caused by funneling money to the top in the kleptocracy we have will cause most people to “hoard” their devices.
Money hoarding by billionaires is literally destroying the entire world
Nah, the 12 dead laptops undef my bed I use for hardware salvage and experiments are device hoarding. The multiple disassembled game consoles in my closet is device hoarding. None of it is sorted, the retro stuff isn’t sorted, the new stuff isn’t sorted.
I’m device hoarding. The average consumer is absolutely not.
Godspeed, you future museum contributor!
The hope is to eventually open a repair cafe/lounge with the
carcassesdisassembled dead retro units as display piecesMy sibling in Aiyuna, that is a museum with extra steps <3
If you make it there and happen to recall this interaction, I would be glad to hear of it!
In a heartbeat, friend!
The MSP I briefly worked at kept a bunch of notable obsolete computers in the main entry way as a kind of “museum” but they didn’t really have the vision to make it look like actual displays, so it kinda almost looks like it’s warm storage for hardware that could be pressed into service any day now
Is it hoarding or simply a step of Reduce, Reuse Recycle?
My pallet of used office PCs I got for $200 but have barely handed off any is device hoarding, keeping your phone for 2-4 years before upgrading is just being financially prudent
It’s funny how thrift and frugality will ruin the economy for everyone but gambling with other people’s homes and retirement funds is good business sense.
blaming the consumer again?
Instead of the billion/trillionaires that are hoarding wealth that they’ll NEVER be able to spend?
how fucking sad is it that there are people sleeping on the street, worried about their next meal will come from, meanwhile gaben has a billion$ worth of megayachts
We need to keep spending money, so that billionaires continue spending on mega yachts, so that mega yacht companies do not start firing their work force due to lack of sales
Why attack steam? Why not any other billionair? Or is epic paying you
You’re right, he definitely needed to buy another new yacht last month. Oh, and the company that makes the yachts, because why not.
That’s real, btw.
There is no such thing as a good billionaire.
why not gaben? He gets a pass for some reason, so why not attack him. Why did you ask why i attacked him and not some other billionaire? is gaben paying you?
What, is Gaben a “good one”? Please. He deserves the criticism as much as any other. Steam is the most unethical platform of its kind.
i refuse to upgrade, because newer phones are objectively a worse experience than older ones. They keep removing features in the name of “innovation” while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don’t want.
I miss the 90s early 2000s, where every 2 years the new products were much better, not only specs wise but categorically so. and a new phone did not cost a month of rent.
I have a 2020’s phone, and besides battery life being weaker now. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade for a marginal spec bump.
When was the last time a new feature was added? like something that would make want to have it? they are afraid of any risk and so there is absolutely no innovation. the closest thing to any risk they took is when they removed the headphone jack to sell 300$ headphones.
The whole industry is being enshitified.
Spec bumps are pretty irrelevant now anyways. Phones are currently in the land of diminishing returns for performance. They’ve been ‘fast enough’ for some time now, and the only thing that breaks them is software, not hardware. Newer hardware is marginally more efficient, so that’s the only real world benefit.
I miss the old days of android where they were trying all manner of wild ideas. I want variety where one company has an eink screen protector. Put a laser pointer on a phone because… Because. Where are the projector phones? Maybe some crazy transformer phone with modules that all clip together to turn into a robot. Sure, they never sold well, but they were cool to see.
You might even change the phone because of the battery and find out that your new device has an absolute power hog of a screen with no battery upgrade to match and your battery life is even worse now
Hey now, they saved half a millimeter of thickness with that smaller battery. You should be thanking them.
I love my flip open smartphone. That was a new feature worth paying for. It’s so small in my pocket.
Or if you go for the “full-size”, a tablet that folds into a standard phone size.
Foldable are nice either direction you want to go.
They keep removing features in the name of “innovation” while putting more stuff in there that the market is actively telling them they don’t want.
I always put off buying a new phone for this exact reason. It feels like every iteration further strips users of the ability to remove telemetry, AI bullshit, or bloatware. I’m not paying out hundreds of dollars for a dedicated advertisement displayer that spies on me.
Capitalism is a cult. Must produce for the sake of production. Must consume for the sake of consumption.
If no need for something exists, it must be created. Solutions in search of problems.
Better to produce something and throw it away than to miss out on a sale, or heaven forbid give it away.
its in response to planned obsolescence.
That movie always wilds me out because it was so much better back then for this shit, and it was still recognized that it’s insane we live like this.
“some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.”
“Those who died are justified; by wearing the badge, they’re your chosen whites”
These problems have been seen forever. Everyone is comfortable working through controlled opposition so we just chill on the ratchet. Its only going to get worse until people grow a spine and stop being tolerant, which is never going to happen.
Man, I know. Too many people didnt understand the point of these events or the cultural icons that spoke about them, and instead chose sides of an imagined political spectrum in North America. Abbie Hoffman and Fred Hampton are rolling in their graves.
…hindsight, for some reason, always appears in 20/20…
What is this from?
They Live.
Yes, but what’s the name of the movie?
No, What’s on second.
Third base!
If you want people to buy a new phone every year “for the economy”, the $1800 phone must be reduced to $50, and the quality stays at flagship levels. The citizens are not here to make the oligarchs wealthy. Fuck your economy.
For real… “device hoarding”. Lol. What about “saving”, “environmentally friendly”, NOT wasting resources for nothing"? No, we need a negative term for that!
This just means they made good enough products. People save some money, can use that money to buy something else they need, maybe just not from the same company. It saves the planet a little bit.
The “use that money to buy something else” part means the premise of the title is not just misguided for all the reasons others point out, but it’s wrong even from a pure “capitalism must go up” view. The people who are keeping phones longer are spending money on other things, driving the economy just as much or potentially more. The extreme rich people and corporations who are hoarding wealth (thus withdrawing it from the economy) are still buying new phones every year as a status symbol.
It means the economy is in bad shape
Can we get a headline about bazillionaires hoarding wealth?
Some journalist should start calling them all Smaug. The problem is a bunch of us asshats would then be like “Smaug did nothing wrong!”
Why should dragons pay tax. He earned that gold fair and square!
#temporarilyembarrasseddragons
Better yet, let’s get the heads of those bazillionaires and put them on pikes, and then run headlines about the excellent new trend of beheading the rich and putting their heads on pikes.
They all have a severe case of OCD, manifesting itself in hoarding behavior. If they hoarded cats as intensely as they hoard money, we would take ALL their cats away, redistribute them to more responsible owners, and hospitalize the OCD victim until their medication kicked in, and they can contribute to society in a positive manner.
They don’t hoard cats, they hoard money, but the solution is the same - confiscate their stolen treasure, redistribute it to the people they stole it from, and incarcerate them until they learn to behave positively among society.
Brought to you by rich boomers who bought a new car every 2 years. True story.
I never know what kind of car my dad drives because he seemingly always has a new one.
If my new car don’t last me 10 years I’m going be petty pissed off.
To be fair, those cars don’t just get set on fire when they’re done with them. They’re supplying the used car market.
It’s a terrible idea financially, but it isn’t actually wasteful.
The demand from it does make car manufacturers to produce more cars. It also floods the market with newer cars, causing older ones being phased out from use earlier
Any car that runs will be driven until it no longer runs
It’s more about what happens after it stops running. If used cars are scarce and prices are high it makes a lot more sense to do that expensive engine repair. If used cars are cheap, you get more repairable cars going to the wrecker.
Had an uncle who did that, learned it from his dad. I never understood that.
Not doing that either, but from what I understand after two years cars get you the most bang for buck. So economically it makes most sense to trade it in after two years for a new one. But of course you’ll need to keep doing so to keep that *advantage "…
from what I understand after two years cars get you the most bang for buck
If you mean buying a two year old car, maybe. If you mean buying a new car every two years as implied by the previous commenter, absolutely not. Cars lose a ton of value in the first couple years.
Pretty sure he means after 2 years it gets a lot harder to sell. So they’re selling at the moment when they’ve had a “new car” longest.
Not saying it’s a good idea, just that there’s a logic to it.
It only works if you paid for the very first new vehicle in cash. Save up for 2 years and cash out the subsequent vehicles as well. Then the numbers pencil out.
If you to take a loan out it’s fucking stupid.
After 2 years at 10k miles per year, historically you have lost 20% or so of the value of the car. With a 5 year loan you have paid the principle down to around 63-64% of the original value.
This means you can trade in the car for more than what you owe on the loan. The difference is a partial or total down payment on a new vehicle.
Lenders strongly encourage this behavior. Due to the amortization schedule 2/3rds of the interest is paid during the first 2 years. So people who do this with loans are always paying the highest intereston their vehicle.
The best thing to do finacially is to buy a car with 20-30k then run it for as long as possible. Once the cost of a common major repair is more than the value of the car, get another low mileage used one.
Yes, these people are truly insane. I recently read the following headline:
Rheinmetall shares: Fear of peace shocks investors
(Translated from German, source | Rheinmetall is an arms manufacturer)
wtf
This world is fucked.
What if, bear with me here, what if people just don’t have as much disposable income after the dramatic transfer of wealth to the rich class we’ve been seeing?
The economy is collapsing and the lower classes are feeling it already. The rich investor class isn’t seeing it because the tech industry has been propping up the market with their investments going all-in with unrealistic expectations for AI technology. We are currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery where the richest are on a spending spree while the poorest are cutting back their expenses. How much more obvious must it be that this is what’s going on?
You want the general population to start wasting their money on useless crap again, you’ll have to give them more money to work with.
I agree, but I gotta point out the area you’re wrong. It’s the internet after all. So don’t take my hyper-focus to heart.
The investors are absolutely aware. They don’t care if AI has any material value. They will happily invest in a bubble and inflate far beyond what anyone believes is possible. The capitalist system has only evolved to be BETTER for capitalist when the bubble pops. They know this. They literally have lobbies dedicated to ensuring their wealth is protected.
I think we confuse the “irrationality of the market” with the investors being irrational themselves. They are doing exactly what any rational investor would do in an economic system that has been built to favor them.
I’m sure you’re aware of this given your perspective. But I think it’s important to use the right vocabulary to describe this. The problem is not a “broken system” with irrational actors. The system is working EXACTLY as intended and the investors are acting completely rationally within the economic system that has been created for their benefit. This isn’t “bad capitalism” that needs regulation. This is just capitalism.
Bubbles and crashes are not something that investors are working hard to avoid. They are a feature of the contradictions of capitalism. Capitalist are very much aware of them and have ensured they can benefit from them while the working class takes the losses.
I agree with Frank Herberts take on the “power corrupts”: its not power that corrupts people, corrupt systems attract corrupt people.
I have never thought in terms of this before but now that you explain it, why wouldn’t they do exactly that when no one was held accountable after the 2008 financial crash, the big firms that fucked the market got bailed out, and the ones who had enough money when the dust settled could buy everything for cheap and increase their ownership?
They’ve also been propping up the market with some sketchy circular deals, swearing up and down they’re not like Enron.
yeah but the culture war demands that every problem is attributed to the woke and the weak minorities /s
…you need to add the /s… otherwise, you are just an ass
will do
the poorest are cutting back their expenses
those people have nothing else left to cut back on.
I straight up laughed when people started talking about “skipping Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals” to “stick it to the Oligarchs,” just like… must be nice to actually have enough disposable income to have been thinking about making leisure purchases during this. Some of us are broke enough that we’ve been putting off replacing things we need that are barely functional because we can’t really afford it and sales like these are the only time we can.
