In Maine, USA, we have a REALLY great law that's called "Implied Warranty". Any product is GUARANTEED 4 years of warranty, if purchased within Maine, as long as the item wasn't damaged from misuse. Had a TV die after 3 years for no good reason, and got it replaced through Vizio, free of charge, because of it. Had a Razer keyboard where the W key wore out after 2 years, got it replaced, free of charge. Had a mouse that wasn't tracking correctly, replaced after 3 years. My Switch Pro Controller had stick drift after a year and a half, replaced free of charge. Had Powerbeats Pro that absolutely fell apart after 2 years, replaced free of charge. I really wish other states/countries would do stuff like this. Then companies would be forced to make higher quality products.
Why isn't this a federal law. We have this in my country as well but ours is not a flat 4 years for everything, it depends on the product type, TVs for instance have a 5 year implied warranty
Australia has similar consumer rights laws, not exactly the same but still pretty good. If I were Wade I'd be going back to the retailer with some of the products - it's actually one of the only ways you can push back against a decline in tech quality since each return hits the manufacturer's or retailer's bank account. The main obstacle is the fact that pressing return claims can be a massive hassle. Companies know this and implicitly use it as a selling point for unnecessary extended warranty policies.
What we also need is for that warranty to refresh with each time they give you a new one so you aren't just stuck with another one that'll break in a year or two. Make stuff last a reasonable amount of time or give lifetime warranty because you keep having to replace it for everyone free of charge. Stop making that product? Free upgrade to a comparable thing. No longer offer comparable product? Full refund even after 8 full warranty replacements over ten years. Cut deep into their bottom line if they make stuff that breaks.
@@ms3862probably not a federal law because of lobbyists bought out by literally every industry.. another reminder that capitalism is deeply fucking flawed
I'm glad someone else shares my immense, growing frustration that EVERYTHING is garbage nowadays. It used to be that you had a choice between "disposable crap", "it'll survive the warranty period" and "well-built". Now you have a choice between "cheap disposable crap", "expensive disposable crap" and "expensive disposable crap with a brand name on it".
I am very annoyed because I know that this is the natural progression of capitalism and it's bound to happen etc etc, but I'm very angry that it's happening now. Like come on, I was just planning on buying some new stuff!
around a year ago he uploaded the first one and said "this might be a yearly thing" and 1 year later, theres a new version. It will probably be a whole series.
Got a similar story. When I built my first PC way back in 2000 (worked my first summer job at Taco Bell to afford it) I bought a cheap Logitech mouse to operate it - maybe $15 at K-Mart. That mouse has been on every desktop PC I ever owned and sometimes passed back and forth between desktop and laptop whenever necessary. Two weeks ago it fell off of my desk as I was moving some things around and the left click stopped working, so I bought a new one at a store near my workplace late that day. Got it home, plugged it in, and the laser stopped working after FIVE MINUTES. The cursor would not move. Buttons would click, but nothing else. Just to test whether it was a software or hardware issue, I plugged my old mouse back in (after being chucked into a trash can) and lo and behold, not only did the cursor move, but the left click worked again. So I got a refund on the new mouse and continue to use the manky 24-year-old mouse.
>have miserable samsung nugget frm 2014 >still functions >have samsung nugget from 2021 >"system UI has stopped working" not even a full 2 years later (I got it replaced a few months ago) I also have a 15 year old camcorder that still works and holds up well. Wtf man?
After "make it suck, charge the same" you have "take away functionality, add a subscription to get itback", "add ads to it" and "use your profits to lobby and ruin the country."
BM friggin W with their subscription heating. Congrats, you only managed to get some tech savvy people to make a software patch to rightfully unlock heated seats for free. At least their lobbying prevents Germany from having hard speed limits on all motorways by default and you can actually use the right half of the speedometer.
I blame the enshitification of stuff on the 80's corporate attitude of "trimming the fat" by cutting out what isn't necessary. The issue is that now they've removed all the fat from the meat, so now they're cutting away meat (to sell back to us) and bone (which is the foundation of the product) in order to continue to see growth.
I'd blame it on MBAs. They only how how to run a "company", not a "Business". A Company exists to churn out work, a Business exists to churn out products. (wow, just invented that term, perhaps I should patent it... )
@SenileOtaku a shit middle manager will have an idea, implement it, show the potential upside in a fucking PowerPoint presentation in front of the board then get promoted for the GREAT WORK. Meanwhile everything goes to shit and the new Middle manager has to try to fix the previous great work. We seem to surround by people who fail upwards.
@@blakksheep736 because of their awful new model that means people will eventually lose access to games that they paid actual money for because one day they'll stop deciding to support it?
God I hate that this has to be a series, but at the same time I'm glad it is. It's nice seeing someone who's honest and not paid off by the shitass companies making shitass products
@@rydoggo ...he literally doesn't even take sponsorships though? lol Besides exactly one case with Ecoflow where they offered to send exactly the product he would've otherwise bought for free, he actively preaches not even doing paid ads in his videos - and even then, they clearly didn't hold any editorial power over that solar pergola video, most especially demonstrated by him bringing up his issues with it for his use case
Companies don’t make money by selling a product once, they make money by making people buy a product again and again and again. My fridge was built in 1991 and runs perfectly. They used to be called “consumer durables.” That term isn’t used anymore.
My parents have had the same washing machine and dryer for over 20 years. I only remember the dryer needing a repair once. Repair guy told them to keep those for as long as they could because a lot of the modern stuff he sees is just junk
The saddest thing I’ve ever done is work with old school 60’s/70’s test equipment (HP, Tektronix, etc). Every single device used to be an actual work of art; incredible quality, user serviceable parts, and the greatest documentation that told you EXACTLY how EVERYTHING worked. It’s honestly sad that my oscilloscope that predates the moon landing is more reliable than anything else I own.
@@jamesjohnXII I feel like that's part of it. but at least with primarily mechanical things like old pre ww2 hand tools there are WAY to many of them for it to be a sole reason. typewriters are the same a lot of the time too. hell the number of 80s> cars still running around compared to even 90s cars means something.
it’s like those memes back then joking about how the nokia 3310 was indestructible, drop an iphone on the floor, screen breaks, drop a nokia on the floor, house breaks
This has singlehandedly made me switch my mindset from "we should sell my late dad's tools" to "don't sell those tools, I might use them when I get a midlife crisis and the new tools suck taint!"
I feel that graph in my soul. When I started my company, I wrote in the charter that it shall not accept investors or shareholders, ever. Can't be sued for your failure to "maintain fiscal responsibility to shareholders" if you don't have any! I make what I want and nobody can tell me to make it worse.
I'd love to see a "Tech that HASNT let me down" special. I get hay like the whole point is tech failing is more of a problem but I'd love a video of the tech that Wade can rely on. Would be very interesting
As part of my job, I have to test the cleaning equipment I service. It's called PAT testing here in the UK (portable appliance testing) (but I also test fixed/hard wired appliances), and the number of items I've seen with pass stickers on from previous companies that are defective or damaged/dangerous has been scary at times. Also, the more old machinery I service, the more I realise how cheap and shitty new things are.
I also do portable appliance testing and what annoys me are the stickers put on devices that run off an external PSU, you know they are getting paid per item when they do that and it makes me question their ability to do the job. Also the fact that our new machine is a cheapo pass/fail one, I like to be able to do tests independent of one another if necessary and I like an ohms readout for the bond test so I know if it's something simple like a poor connection.
@dglcomputers1498 it's unfortunate that PAT testing is a numbers game with a lot of companies. I've occasionally done just plain PAT testing, and when I have gotten complains that I'm not doing enough items each hour, which frustrates me to no end.
@@kyleholloway3470 I'm lucky that normally I get left to it, it's testing stuff in the hire fleet caravans at work normally and my boss has no real idea of how long it takes, i might get asked sometimes about how long i'm taking but just ignore it. I'm just above minimum wage so they are saving a lot anyway. Interestingly I was doing some key cutting at work and the GM was around and asked how any I reckon I could do in a day, naturally I didn't give an answer though he did say at one point "about 50?" to which I should have said yes as it turns out I'd already done more than 50 so far that day!
The reason that enshittification is supposed to not work is that the free market *should* create alternatives to the shitterton product which would eventually go bankrupt because people would buy/use the new product, but the issue is the products and services that are getting enshittified now are often so big that there is only one or 2 competitors and they are also doing the same tactics to make more money or force you to lock into/drop out of an ecosystem of products/peripherals. It's almost impossible to come up against them as a small company too, the economy of scale that these massive corpos enjoy make any attempt to compete a long term battle at best.
If you're planning to switch to using that DSLR for filming, make sure it doesn't have a video duration limit - most cameras will cut off before 30 mins for tax reasons, as if a camera can record for over 30 mins it's taxed at a different rate as it's classified as a camcorder
@@thepuzzlemaster64 The quality out the HDMI is fine, the annoyance with doing it is that you need an external recorder, which is yet another point of failure/let-down.
the next in the line is clearly the products you do buy also having subscriptions to make you pay continuously after the initial purchase, oh and of course sacking even more employees and replacing them with AI chatbots so you dont need to pay for customer service staff, and given how bad the chatbots are you also get to avoid actually carrying out warrenty because people just give up before ever getting that far.
Samsung is already attempting that kinda crap with Galaxy AI lol. Good thing that shit is useless. In the long term tho I wonder if it'll create some black market.
>replacing them with AI chatbots so you dont need to pay for customer service staff I hate to say this, but that's already happened. Are you aware of a service called Sprinklr?
“Make it worse, but charge the same!” Spoken like a true champ there. People will have tech that disappoint them, and your video was really, really enjoyable as always man! And I can really watch every video titled this, totally. I wanna share my experience with the tech that led me down. The tech that led me down is the iPhone, as a very important pdf of mine, a pdf on which my job was dependent upon, was not opening. If it wasn’t for my mom’s crappy Android phone, I would have lost my job. Seriously. Not to mention the tons of bugs/issues that the current software has, AirDrop sucks, camera issues sucks, etc. And that is the reason why I am switching back to Android baby! Back to me ol’ roots after 7 years of hardcore iPhone usage! But man, don’t berate Samsung for the software! I love One UI. I was a Samsung user previously, and I loved it, and since I have previously been a Samsung user, I will be buying S25 Ultra, not the S24, as I was thinking of buying S24 six months after the launch, and I thought that why shouldn’t I wait for six more months to get S25 instead? So, yeah. S25 for me it is.
I agree with this so much. I've always switched back and forth between ios and android for years now, and I don't think i'll ever go back to ios again. My last phone was the iphone 13 mini (which I got for the size), I had it for 2 years and if it wasn't for the crap camera and display refresh rate i'd still have it to this day. I had a hard time with college, sitting in the first row and still struggled to take some clear zoomed in pictures (just x5 zoom shouldnt be acceptable), that was the point I decided to go for samsung again. Samsung never disappointed me, it's just that ios is much user friendly and smoother to use, but one ui is great as well. Having x3 optical zoom, x30 zoom, 120hz refresh rate, being able to customize the hell out of your phone, and just freedom overall is hard to give up on. Iphone users don't realize how big of a deal 120hz is because they've never experienced it, I went from a samsung s9 to the iphone 13 mini and the display looked great. But now that i've gotten used to the s23 It's hard to look at an iphone. And the fact that the iphone 15 was released like a few months ago and still has 60hz is beyond stupid. People that complain about OneUI are iphone users that are simply not used to it. I don't have any problems with it since my first ever phone was a samsung s2, and even after years of ios it was really easy to go back to OneUI. That's not on samsung, that's on the user. It's not their fault you don't take your time to google stuff, read the user manual, and figure shit out. They really love pretending as if they didn't have a hard time on their first ever time on ios and had to do some research on how to operate the phone. Once you get the basics down it's a very nice and smooth operating system
"Haha, look at all this stuff that doesn't work!" He throws the router on the desk, and my stomach drops, knowing I have one in the next room that's a few months old.
Both you and Wade fucked up bigtime. Never! buy anything that is made for "gamers" or "Gaming". 99.9 percent of the time the item in question will break or underperform compared to a standard product of the same price.
My mum and dad are divorcing but are still on good terms one of a few reasons they aren't fully separated is because of an old barbeque plate that they don't want to split because it 1. Cooks great 2. Spreads heat evenly very well 3. Hasn't ever jumped out of multiple BBQs we've owned 4. Still doesn't have much gunk stick to it easily I will also say that the barbeque plate was passed down 2 generations now it is older than I am and im sitting here drinking beer while watching this so it is very old
For me the worst thing has been that nothing can be fixed. Grandparents and parents grew up in days where you could take things apart and fix em up. Things made of metal you could de-rust and bend back into shape. Wood parts that could be replaced. Bolts and screws that you could take apart over and over again. Now it's plastic that will turn to goop or to dust one day and there's nothing you can do about it. Everything glued or clipped together never to come apart again. You economic theory is spot on too. Who knows where we go from here but i hope things do get better
They COULD be fixed. But they'd have to supply parts and schematics. Too much special interest lobbying to allow that to happen. The excuse is for "safety" because customers are too dumb to wield a soldering iron. Though the real reason is always money.
That‘s not true- you just have to find the courage to dig in. I repaid our oven and replaced a heating element (I’m far from an electrician, but I worked clean, and I double checked everything), computers, furniture (i learned was a wood router was), and now I’m even printing spare parts with my 3d printer. I had a plastic part break on a window, which wasn’t available any longer snd used parts were ridiculously overpriced. So i downloaded a „near enough“ part on thingiverse, tuned it a bit (i had 4 reprints), and tadaa, success! (I uploaded the part for everybody to use, obviously). Yes, you might break a piece or to, but that’s the „learning charge“, so to speak. But if you succeed you’ll be proud of the things you can safe, even if you won’t install plumbing any time soon there’s a lot to do, i know it! 😉👍
Good news Wade, after this step plateaus the next step is subscription models! Bet you can’t wait for that Malwaukee drill to be the same terrible quality but cost 6.99 a month or it bricks itself!
If you see any product that shows "cloud connectivity" and/or "smart" on the box, that is an anti-feature. If it always connects to the internet it has the capability to remove features from you and charge you a subscription for it.
@@ambiarock590 Yep. This current system will eat itself. Continuous growth is a stupid thing to base the economy off. Nobody wins, not even the massive companies who initially profit from it.
I have a +$2000 gravel bike that I've had since 2021. The derailur would constantly fall out of position atthe slightest nudge, wheel would come out of true at least once a month. Snapped the fork by running it into a bench at low speeds. Another bike, a steel mountian bike from 1993 that I bought from a used bike store, ridden 1000+ miles, changed repaired or upgraded almost every component, hit by several cars (and slipped on ice many times more,) still going strong.
Extreme example, but I used to ride a 1939 CCM bicycle back and forth to work in 2014 that when I bought it, hadn't been touched since the 60s. I fixed it up a bit, and I put some new tires on it as the original ones were in decent shape, but I didn't really trust them due to age. After dealing with slow leaks and a couple of flats in a month, I decided to give the original tires a try for the hell of it since they didn't look too bad. I never had another issue until I got my license a couple of years later
Up until 2020, things were slowly declining in quality, but then something happened and everything just nosedived in quality. I hesitate to buy anything anymore.
SAME I just get frustrated whenever I need to get a new product. Usually i go for second hand alternatives or just decide on not buying it at all and living without it. After the tv died within two years I have decided to stop watching tv. Actually very good for mental health lmaoo
I originally bought iPods cuz I thought it would be fun to have. Nowadays I actively use them because my opinions on streaming nosedove. You don't own the music, you're limited what devices you can store it on, your library access is at the labels' whims; so my iPods have become my actual music players
@@bingbong6066 I stopped watching tv 10 years ago, I had an oldish tv that died last year, it lasted for around 13 years and I used it everyday as a monitor for my pc (it was pretty decent, 1080p with 60hz and good colors, nothing amazing but nothing to complain about either). My family got a TV like 4 years ago, they had so many dead pixels they had to change it (it was under 2 years so it still had warranty), shortly after the same problem happened and they couldn't repair it via warranty anymore so they bought a new one. Guess what, this new tv is starting to have similar problems as well (a straight thin black line that will slowly get bigger and bigger). Nothing can convince me that 80% of the engineering does NOT go into figuring out how to make stuff break the second it turns 2 years old so the warranty is void
@@ambiarock590 That's why I now have >80% of my Spotify library on CD as well. I may have spent $600 on music in the past six months but it is mine forever. Not just until I stop giving some gatekeeper money to access the music I want.
mercedes/bmw: "why are ppl not buying our cars anymore? we treat them like shit, demanding subscription for stuff we already built in the car and that was free to use in the older models and they stop buying. we can't figure out why!!!"
I originally bought iPods because it Wade and I thought it was fun to have a couple lying around. Nowadays I actively use these instead of music streaming so I can actually own my music and not have to pay monthly for my music. Streaming sucks
@@ambiarock590 I'm planning on buying music CDs, mainly of the artists and albums I really enjoy. While I still like RU-vid Music for the discoverability of it (I wouldn't know of basically any of the artists I listen to if I were just listening to the same music I bought), I do want to start owning some of it.
100% with you on this one could not agree more and glad someone is calling it out. I rarely buy tech stuff any more, and when I do it is obsessively researched for days/weeks beforehand.
When it comes to orbis, they have worked fine at my parents house for like 5 years. No problems.the router has quit several times and the orbis have survived just fine
5:18 That still feels like too much of a compliment for Apple considering they were strong-armed into putting usb-c on it. Otherwise, it would still use the lightning cable.
@@Girvo747at my house, we never bought new electronics until a while. when my mom got an iPhone 15(?), it came with a cable but not a brick. I dont know how many times i've told my grandma "it doesnt work with lightning!" also, my grandma insists that everything from verizon is official. i keep telling her what real boxes look like, she doesnt listen.
This is one of those frustrations I am completely and 100% behind. Also-now you can't even FIX THE THINGS YOU BOUGHT, BECAUSE IT'S DESIGNED TO BREAK AND BE UNFIXABLE AGH. It could be the rose-tinted glasses talking, but I feel like you used to be able to buy garbage, or get quality if you paid enough. But now you get crap no matter how much you pay; while you can still find the good stuff, it's SO much harder to find, and SO much more expensive. Though if I remember correctly the sandblasting cabinet was a bit dodgy to begin with, so that one kind of checks out
I love these videos cause I am do a lot of buying of cheap Chinese electronics like microcontrollers for projects, and they have all been rock solid. How these name brand manufacturers are basically repackaging and selling these for ridiculous amounts manage to bung them up more than I can with a sodering iron is amazing
Your manky cardboard graph is the perfect representation of modern tech. Junk that is easily damaged and works only for a short time, if at all. in contrast, my 1987 Electrolux vacuum cleaner has only become useless because you can't get the dust bags anymore.
I have an old Kirby 508 from 1948 that I restored a few years back. That thing will pick up better than most vacuum cleaners today and it's nowhere near as loud. And the motor only draws 5 amps. Bagless vacuums suck.
The chart is a step behind because the next step that is happening now is make everything as cheap as possible then attach it to an app and hide "features" behind a paywall/subscription.
Hey Wade, I feel you on a lot of this. Phones suck, tools break all the damn time, and probably the worst was an example from my good friend Rob. We do live streams on the road in high school gyms, and we have to use our own internet because schools have the actual worst internet you've ever seen. Not too long ago, the hotspot just died, and we had to get a new one. The provider made us wait for god knows how long to replace it, giving us the run around the whole time, and forcing us to do multiple streams on school wifi. Big companies are actually the worst, especially big tech.
As a former pro cleaner, Henrys are crap too. My colleagues mostly used these old metal things like dustbins or Henrys, and when one of the metal ones died they gave us a Nilfisk. My colleague whose machine died didn't rate Nilfisk but I tried it and immediately swapped her my Henry. Nilfisk sucked better and quieter, rolled better and had a longer cable.
Subscriptions work for things where constant updates are expected, it costs money to employ devs to work on updates, but for things like cars , you should be able to use the features in the car for no extra cost, and pay walled stuff should be things that aren't free to provide
One reason I've been using iPods and CDs. No one can take my CDs away and my iPods cannot be cursed with subscriptions. I bought an iPod cuz of this channel for fun but now they're my actual music players
Everything is throwaway and temporary now. You'd be lucky if a newly bought device lasts for more than a year. We need more content creators to point out that it is not ok, because at this rate the only legacy new tech will leave us with is a pile of crumbling plastic.
I agree, there's too many "Top" lists of junk that is "good". More influencers should call out the crap. I consider myself very skeptical when it comes to purchasing anything. If I find something good like a good shirt or a good dongle, I buy a few of them knowing that when I need a new one, they will have made it worse
The thing is... If influencers called out crap goods, sponsorship offers will likely decrease. Then again, social influencers usually hock anything from unnecessary goods to outright scams. I've heard enough about Prime Hydration to know I don't want to drink that crap (Gatorlyte and Electrolit are better hydration drinks anyway), you heard about Raid Shadow Legends so much you know you don't want to play it, dare I go on?
I need to buy a document scanner at some point so I can digitize my recipts and stuff. I need to research which one to get to ensure that the one I buy does not come with subscriptions is not cloud connected, and doesn't have any locked down garbage
This makes me feel grateful that my hobby of choice is being an audiophile. It's the only market I can think of where the cheap chinese stuff is actually good if you know what to look for.
Those usually don’t last either though. I bought KZs around 2021, the cable only lasted a couple months, so ended up replacing that 3 times, and now one of the speakers is giving out in the cold. In the end it only lasted 2 years with extensively trying to keep it going
@@fridtjofriibe5961 My cheap KZs are also disappointingly unreliable. Many times I notice one of the buds not working proper, but after a clean out of almost no gunk in the tube, it works fine. The cable though, is kinda trash. It often cuts one of the channels if you don't rotate it right in the plug :( I have two cables for my KZs and they both do this.
Also getting good old headphones lasts your forever. My brother didn't see the benefit in buying thousand dollar headphones but they are cheaper than a home hifi setup and you could literally keep them for your entire life and they would outlive you. Id love to get a set of Emyrians at some point later on in life
It used to be that there was cheap garbage and expensive "would last a lifetime" stuff, but with so many things nowadays, you can choose between cheap garbage and more expensive garbage. Everyone is talking about "saving the environment" but the fact that 99% of tech these days is built to last maybe a year if at all isn't mentioned.
My best tech purchase last year was a $35 Asus disc drive. It got me into collecting CDs (music streaming sucks now anyway) and ripping them to FLAC. The drive is just a simple one without Blu-Ray support, but it gets the job done. Fun fact: It came with a mini USB to USB-C cable, one of the most cursed things I've seen.
I really appreciate these videos you do and really look forward to you doing more of these. Companies will not care how crap something really is until everything comes crashing down from belowe them, retailers and all, with their short term strategies. We have to bring them down sooner than they will bring us, by spreading word and not purchasing from them. We live in a world where lesser known but upstanding smaller companies are more trustworthy than the "trusted" big brand.
I really appreciate how from the beginning you've been honestly a really good consumer advocate. You're consistently looking out for people but doing it in an entertaining and funny and easily understandable way. I really respect that!!
As a Samsung user absolutely. Good luck! Frankly I have barely any issues with their software (bloatware can be removed, Good Luck is an amazing customization tool and One UI as a whole is wonderful for customizing, and nowadays its very fast and fluid), but I'd be lying to say it doesn't have issues, or that people are invalid for not liking it.
@@Photo0021the thing is wade seems like a guy who wants things to work perfectly for his needs straight out the box with no issues. Android can be made to be amazing but requires some work (as you outlined in your comment)
@@pyther9852 And I get it a lot since I have family who is the same! And the only Android they'd ever touch is stock Android (Found in Pixel, Moto, etc) and they still prefer iPhone.
thank you for bringing this up, every goddamn youtuber on the planet is like "THIS IS AMAZING IT'S 3% BETTER THAN LAST YEAR AND 100$ MORE GO BUY IT NOW" especially in the f ing smartphone space
Yeah I found a 4th gen IPod in a drawer years ago and after seeing your first video in 2019 I swapped the battery, stopped using it after awhile and let it completely die again for like 3 years and I needed something that could play music that wasn't a phone so I plugged it in and it just works like nothing even happened. Sounds better than my stinking phone too even with all the "ultra HD quality" and "spatial audio" bs amazons pushing on amazon music the songs that were pirated on that thing like 20 years ago still sound better lol. Speaking of declining quality those KBear headphones you recommend occasionally have gotten worse, I have 4 pairs because I keep losing them and buying new ones then finding the old ones and after pair #2 they stopped coming with a mic, pair #1 and #2 are broke or about to be, atp and I just use them for parts to keep pair #4 and #3 kicking. Love your vids keep it up even with everything getting shittier!
@@ToastyMozart and rightly so, places are starting to consider banning them because of the *monumental* amount of waste they produce (As well as the protect the children strawman, instead of policing the retailers selling them like the law allows) Also fun fact, most if not all of those disposable vapes have rechargeable batteries in them, given that they're usually lipo batteries, absolute insanity that they're treated as disposable. You're aware of this already but I'm sure many others that might read this won't be
@@ToastyMozart I was so pissed when I first saw one of Big Clive's videos about how to recover the batteries from discarded single use vapes (or refill them if you want). WTF. So much plastic and battery waste.
That Orbi will probably work more fine if it's not placed right in the nook of that metal trim. But yeah I've basically just given up on consumer networking gear, it's so bad. Look at small business type stuff: I've got an Edgerouter X and a UFO looking wireless access point. Together they cost about 170 Freedom Eagles and they beat the pants off $300+ wireless routers. After 3 years of use that duo still works like new.
100% I bought a cheap $40 Netgear business router specifically for the sole purpose of having a dedicated router to use Oculus Airlink for (needs WiFi 6 to function at its best) and it works perfect for that. Although the range is actually less than the router my ISP gave me (this chunky absolute unit of a box that has great range.) and I'm glad my ISP is local and Co-op owned so its unlikely to go completely shit. The best bit is that, while I have to pay for a home phone (ugh $36 extra a month) because I am in the co-op I get a check once a year that refunds me a bit of my money. Last year's was like $160. Doesn't beat having your ISP pay you!
You skipped the tech that gave you up. I'm looking forward to the tech that ran around and deserted you, the tech that made you cry, that said to you goodbye, as well as the tech that told you a lie and hurt you. I WILL BE WAITING, MATE.
For networking stuff, namely WiFi, de-integrating has been the best thing I've ever done. My network has become SOOOO much more reliable after ditching the all-in-one boxes we call wireless routers. I use a little mini PC with dual 2.5Gbps ethernet running pfSense as a router, a couple of unmanaged switches, and a couple dedicated wireless access points. 99% of my network problems have disappeared. I have ONE issue. If the modem ever goes out, I have log in to the router and reboot it when the modem comes back up to get internet again. Don't know why. I might be able to solve that by switching to OPNSense. The pfSense router I did mostly for giggles anyway. Really, just switching to dedicated access points did me the most good.
I originally bought iPods cuz I thought it was fun to have. Now I actually use these as my music players and I've cancelled Spotify. Streaming services suck and I'd rather own my music
@@ambiarock590 I feel you. I'm still stuck on streaming just because I don't have the time to curate playlists and I lost all of my CDs. 😩 I will try to make the switch back when I can though. You're a real one though. Thanks for keeping on-the-go music alive. 🙌🏿
@@coolworths I've bought quite a bit of stuff from Elite Obsolete. I'd love to keep using these iPods for numerous years. I'm really starting to appreciate dysconnectivity where no one can bother you while listening to music, not being disturbed by a phone call when you go places; constant connectivity is not a thing I'm a fan of
You very very nearly fit Apple's description of their perfect customer for iPhone the way you were using it for all your vids on your channel *and* as your main phone, like, that's one of it's single strongest selling points, and you + your channel style + how good they've gotten fit the bill literally perfectly for that use case. Your use case was basically the *ideal* use case for what they want to market to. To have you choose to voluntarily stop using it indicates a colossal failure on Apple's part and is actually probably a bigger deal than it might seem at first since if someone who it's *this* perfect for from a conceptual point of view can't justify continuing with it then well it's basically failed at it's purpose.
This is exactly why my car is 31 years old. Everyone calls me nuts for keeping the original radio with a tape player, but I can't justify replacing it with something that will inevitably fail in 2 years (maybe 3 if I'm lucky). I should consider becoming Amish at some point...
Whenever something I own breaks I just want to replace it with an exact copy of what i had, unfortunately companies have decided this should be impossible
I currently run an iPhone 13 pro max that I got handed down to me by my pops. If it dies I'll just go get a 10 or something cuz I'm starting to dislike the massive screens cuz you can't one-hand big phones well
On that graph you forgot move all the design and engineering overseas, saves money on the engineering and reduces quality and you get the bonus of losing tons of institutional knowledge! You also need more people, because each person can't do as much work, but it is still cheaper.
Discovered this channel probably about 2 years ago. Love the content! Even had memberships on Floatplane and Patreon. It's a perfect combo of my electronics geek, and breaking things. 😊 I too love manky old electronics (and just old stuff in general really), and sometimes fixing them up. I will say.. I dispise Apple.. with every fiber of my being.. however.. the Ipod was just the GOAT of music players. So for my nostalgia and a bit of a side hobby. I bought a 30gb 5th gen. That's just the best looking one IMO. Paid 50 bucks for it, so it should be in pretty good condition.. doesn't really matter much. Mainly I did this because when you listen to music, few things are more irritating than getting a text or a phone call, when you're rocking out and having a good time.. then RING RING RING! I plan on Restoring it, and it will mostly live in my car as my dedicated music player. I plan on either Restoring or replacing the case to make the boy look nice😊, new big batt, flash mod, and possibly BT mod. Probably get some good dirty buds also (Likely those sweet looking IEMs you recommended in the past) depending on if I do the BT mod or not. I wanted to do this with a.. Na-no😊.. those were actually my favorite ones. I actually found a perfect condition 4th gen in my car that I just bought. However, I found out after buying a cable for it. The batt was cooked (and the infamous black spot was starting) so I bought a good tool set to take it apart. Had to poke a hole in the batt to vent it to get it out. I was super safe about it. But either someone had been in there.. or I (very possible) broke the hold switch and clickwheel ribbon cables. Then I found out you have to desolder the batt to get it out, and flash modding the nanos isn't really worth it or not possible. It was a very pretty pod.. almost new looking in blue.. but just wasn't meant to be. Anyways, I wanted to thank you for getting me back into an old hobby!😊😊 Update: Oh boys did I mess up. 😂 So for 50 bucks I got a Blk 30gb 5th gen that was marked as "good" condition and looked good in the pics. Which is true.. the front of the face has almost no scratches, and everything does work. That's where the good ends. To put it mildly.. Someone's been in here! 😂 Every clip that holds it together is broken.. looks like a butter knife was their entry tool of choice.. the hold switch works.. sometimes. The headphone port is dented badly.. and there's a small dent on the back... 50 bucks. Luckily I was planning on a restoration.. and boy did I get it. Should have just bought a parts lot. 😂 So.. plan of action. I've ordered a new blk front face plate, a 4ch flash board, a blk back case with a 3k mah battery, and a BT Transmitter. May get a different color clickwheel later for style points. Only thing I'll lose is the hold switch because that how the BT goes on for now.. and I'll figure that out later. Wish me luck boys!
What Wade is describing hre sounds like the main theme of "the Innovator's dilemma". Big companies eventually fall or they need to tap out into new, risky markets (which cost them a lot of money). Small startups don't require a ton to be sucessful, and that's how new companies are born.
One thing that really caught me off guard was when I was looking a nice hair comb, I couldn't find a one that was as nice as my mom's plastic comb, which surprisingly she got free with some makeup back in the 80's. Why can't a simple product be produced well? I got the comb I could find, which sucked, they bend at the slightest knot. It feels like even the brooms are made worse now, and for what? It's has gotten into all product categories. I could make a whole video myself complaining about stuff atp.
I finally bought a new table fan to replace the old, cheap Zellers fan that ran almost continuously since 1997. Only getting a break during power outages and the occasional cleaning. I replaced it with a fan from Hampton Bay. They made our ceiling fans and those are still going strong 18 years later. Dead within a day. Started smoking an hour in. I did an autopsy before sending it back. There was absolutely no oil in the bearings. They forgot to lube the thing. We've hit the point where I don't want to buy anything anymore because I know it's going to be crap. Now I just have some ancient industrial fan from the 50s. At least I can oil this one so it'll never run dry. And the less said about all the ACDelco and Delphi parts that have quit on me in the last 12 months, the better. I can't even depend on factory replacement parts for my car anymore.
The tower fans they sell at Costco very good. The Seville ones. I had one for about 15'+ years. They don't really change them asides for a couple things.
For a ceiling fan I recommend looking up a Lowes special or look out for ceiling fans where the blades are curved and not just straight pieces of cheap MDF board. I picked up a Lowes fan and it was decent for the price. Great LED light and has a handy remote. The latter are more likely to invest more into R&D because the curved blades require actual engineers to design it rather than copy and pasting a flat piece. My quality ceiling fan that I picked up for free at a thrift store 6 years ago the brand name is Minka-Aire. I probably got a fan that was 10 years old at the time. The bearings are still perfect and it doesn't make noise, just the sound of air moving.
I have a cieling fan from '91, it was an old outdated desing (manufactured locally by a small, now defunct, company) probably from the 60s, best fan I've ever had. I've even moved since and I brought the damm thing with me. Last year a floor fan my grandmother bought used in the 80s finally died (and I wanted to repair it) but my family insisted I buy a new one, and, OH BOY, they were literally no non-terrible fans avaible, the cost didn't even matter, NOBODY even bodered to import anything but the trashiest trash (as if people suddenly didn't need a fan anymore).
@@Nkrlz I was shopping for a fan recently and noticed the same thing. Most are junk, even if you pay a lot. I found a couple that were promising, but I'm hesitant to get my hopes up.
We had once an old Kaercher pressure washer, smallest, cheapest model, yet high quality pump, survived over 20 years in a small agriculture with 2 tractors and often washing them and other stuff. Nearly daily use! In the end rust and leakages ended its life, motor, pump etc still fine! Got many years ago a K5.... little did i know, the modern not highest end products use cheaper, less durable pumps. Had them to replace under warranty 2 times before we got a K7 with at least the brass pump which held up at least the past 4 years. The issue with those practices... despite not needing any better pressure washer.... i have to buy now the expensive, highest end Kaercher K series because only the top model gets the higher quality brass pump while in the 90s up to about 2000 they had even in their cheapest, smallest model a very durable pump.
I stopped buying things new a few years ago. I got sick of software dying after a few months, batteries completely failing after a year, exterior cases cracking to the point of becoming deadly edged weapons, clothes that fall apart after just months, and constant toxicity scares from treated surfaces wearing away. My furniture is old, my cookware is old, my clothes are old (most having been repaired by my hands more times than America's roadways), my home electronics are old. The only problem is that I'm having to go through increasingly esoteric ways of fixing things, because anything made after the 1990s has so much plastic in it that just taking it apart to fix it has a pretty good chance of breaking it entirely. I cannot disassemble my stereo system to fix the tape stop button for that very reason, and so I have created a method of using a hand made metal spring to push the lever down instead. The modern world is great. I love it.
It frustrates me so much that these companies make billions of pounds each year, but then still look at their financial reports like "this is unacceptable! Fire another department!!"
A lot of people are quick to blame these quality issues on the countries the manufacturing has moved to but I can assure you that you can get good product from anywhere with proper training of staff and quality control. Especially China, the manufacturing revolution in China started decades ago and they have a seasoned workforce of workers and engineers who can make products that rival the best of the best, but companies are not willing to pay for the best of the best or even adequate and are content with consumers blaming China (or India, or Taiwan, etc) for product quality while they are making record profits. Consumers need to recognize this and demand that companies do more about quality control. I've had plenty of things with a big "Made in the USA" sticker on them fail out of the box because anywhere can make good products as well as bad products.
Just had the greatest deja-vu OAT, last year i was watching the 2022 version of this video while having a migraine, now this year, i'm watching this video while having a migraine. KEEP IT GOING WADE I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS ❤
