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Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

Want another exemple as fresh as yesterday? I'm on a move, had to pay some transport company to …

Want another exemple as fresh as yesterday? I'm on a move, had to pay some transport company to move some stuff for me, pick-up date tomorrow. Paid online, website asked for a confirmation from my bank's app (N26), fair enough. Opened the app, just to be greated with "Please Update. The latest app version includes new features, enhancements and stability improvements" with the only choice: "Update now". Being confronted with an app designed to refuse to work was irritating enough (for context, I'm from a generation were we used to own our devices), but I clicked on "Update" anyway, just to be told by apple store that there was no update for my iPhone 7. Ok, the writting was on the wall. You know, I own one iphone and 2 android phones already, all of them several years old but in pristine condition. That's how I am, I care for things. I'm not going to buy yet another one, if only because I hate waste and fear mismanagement of natural resources. That's how I am, I care for things. Now you are mandating me to add more e-waste? …

Original discussionRetiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state492 source comments · at import
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CA

I honestly have only come across one company that is app only. That was because I was with them when they changed over, otherwise I would never have signed up. This was my local gym which sacked their front desk staff and moved to app access only, and with an app infested with trackers at that. Needless to say I don't go to that gym anymore.

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EN

Yes, your bank is shit, but this is also Apple's fault to a large degree. There is absolutely no reason to release a new major version of your OS every year, and there is no reason to arbitrarily drop support for older devices (except extremely contrived ones, that I'm sure will be posted below). I made the mistake of acquiring an Ipad once. Its only job was playing YouTube videos in bed (yes I know), until Apple and Google in unison decided that it should be thrown into a landfill, because its OS was unsupported and the YouTube app, for no reason at all, would no longer work. Was the device suddenly unable to decode H.264 video or playing audio? Nope. But please just throw it in the trash and buy a new one - what are you, poor?!

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CA

Beautifully said! I must just have a sixth sense to avoid those kinds of services. And I also have a zero tolerance policy. For example, if a restaurant says I have to order on my phone, I stand up and go to leave. I am old enough now they probably just assume I am technologically illiterate.

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KR

Your story is appalling, and I agree that this is a major problem. However, drowning in e-waste from smartphones is many orders of magnitude from being an issue, as trivial calculations easily show. Mentioning it makes your argument rhetorically much weaker. The iPhone 16 is 147.6mm × 71.6mm × 7.8mm (8.2 × 10⁻⁵ m³) and weighs 170g, according to https://www.dimensions.com/element/apple-iphone-16-18th-gen . The population of France is 68.6 million people. One iPhone per person each year for the next century would be 6.86 billion iPhones in France, assuming the population remained constant. This would weigh 1.2 million tonnes and fit in a sphere 51 meters in diameter. If stacked 6 meters deep it would cover 9.4 hectares, a circle 340 meters in diameter. France contains 63 million hectares. The hypothetical pile of iPhones would cover about a third of the area of the Gravelines Nuclear Power…

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WO

Counter example, from the future :) Year 2034, you have a nice vintage, lightly used electric car. Battery still charges and whole box drives. Do you need to buy new car or gov need to prohibit you using it or enforce to scrap it ? Most likely yes - battery is about to explode, possibly on crowded crossroad... Real problems sometimes demands 0 or 1 action. Just "phone app from everyone" etc is monopolies inflicted harm on society.

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