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.
Google also shelves many of its own products, including some that are actually useful.
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.
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
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.
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
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/
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.
There’s a lightbulb invented in 1901 that has been running continuously since then.
Woah. Simply… woah.