Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
Search - "consumer tech"
-
The list would be quite long.
I think Google is still making good tools, but just like Apple the integrations get all so tight and constricting... And with their data, if it goes wrong, it will go wrong hard.
I feel like YouTube is gliding into a state where cheap clickbait floats to the top and finding quality gets more difficult as well, their algorithm is more and more tuned to choose recent popular stuff over good older gems.
Microsoft is all pretend lovey dovey cuddling open source, but I'm still suspicious it's all a hug of death. I was never a big fan, but they're seriously dropping balls when it comes to windows-as-a-service, taking away so much personal control from end users even though they can't be trusted to babysit either.
Amazon is creeping it's way through the internet, charging $10/m to join the vip club infesting houses with spytubes to sell more plastic crap. Bezos' only right to keep wasting oxygen is BlueOrigin, but he'll probably fuck that up as well turning spaceflight into a decadent prime consumer orgy instead of something inspiring.
Facebook... Well, that's self explanatory. Fuck it, everything it pretends to be, and everyone who still has an account with a rusty spike.
Uber and AirBnB, with their fake ass mission of a green shared economy, but they trample over employees, customers and neighbors to build their ivory towers of progressive illusions.
Then there's a million declining brands.
I liked Skype for example when it was first released, Just like how I started out liking (and then hating) Discord, Slack, etc... They're all tools which seem fast and easy, but then they get us further away from solid protocols, get us entrenched into limiting, bloated and sometimes even dangerous tools. As my dad used to say: "Companies are like women, if you go for cheap, fast and easy you'll end up with a burning dick and half your savings gone"
You know what, fuck all tech companies.
OK, devrant is still pretty nice... For now.8 -
Consumers ruined software development and we the developers have little to no chance of changing it.
Recently I read a great blog post by someone called Nikita, the blog post talks mostly about the lack of efficiency and waste of resources modern software has and even tho I agree with the sentiment I don't agree with some things.
First of all the way the author compares software engineering to mechanical, civil and aeroespacial engineering is flawed, why? Because they all directly impact the average consumer more than laggy chrome.
Do you know why car engines have reached such high efficiency numbers? Gas prices keep increasing, why is building a skyscraper better, cheaper and safer than before? Consumers want cheaper and safer buildings, why are airplanes so carefully engineered? Consumers want safer and cheaper flights.
Wanna know what the average software consumer wants? Shiny "beautiful" software that is either dirt ship or free and does what it needs to. The difference between our end product is that average consumers DON'T see the end product, they just experience the light, intuitive experience we are demanded to provide! It's not for nothing that the stereotype of "wizard" still exists, for the average folk magic and electricity makes their devices function and we are to blame, we did our jobs TOO well!
Don't get me wrong, I am about to become a software engineer and efficient, elegant, quality code is the second best eye candy next to a 21yo LA model. BUT dirt cheap software doesn't mean quality software, software developed in a hurry is not quality software and that's what douchebag bosses and consumers demand! They want it cheap, they want it shiny and they wanted it yesterday!
Just look at where the actual effort is going, devs focus on delivering half baked solutions on time just to "harden" the software later and I don't blame them, complete, quality, efficient solutions take time and effort and that costs money, money companies and users don't want to invest most of the time. Who gets to worry about efficiency and ms speed gains? Big ass companies where every second counts because it directly affects their bottom line.
People don't give a shit and it sucks but they forfeit the right to complain the moment they start screaming about the buttons not glaring when hovered upon rather than the 60sec bootup, actual efforts to make quality software are made on people's own time or time critical projects.
You put up a nice example with the python tweet snippet, you have a python script that runs everyday and takes 1.6 seconds, what if I told you I'll pay you 50 cents for you to translate it to Rust and it takes you 6 hours or better what if you do it for free?
The answer to that sort of questions is given every day when "enganeers" across the lake claim to make you an Uber app for 100 bucks in 5 days, people just don't care, we do and that's why developers often end up with the fancy stuff and creating startups from the ground up, they put in the effort and they are compensated for it.
I agree things will get better, things are getting better and we are working to make programs and systems more efficient (specially in the Open Source community or high end Tech companies) but unless consumers and university teachers change their mindset not much can be done about the regular folk.
For now my mother doesn't care if her Android phone takes too much time to turn on as long as it runs Candy Crush just fine. On my part I'll keep programming the best I can, optimizing the best I can for my own projects and others because that's just how I roll, but if I'm hungry I won't hesitate to give you the performance you pay for.
Source:
http://tonsky.me/blog/...13 -
🪙 The golden age of tech is coming to an end. We currently live in a world of tech built by engineers and great minds; both Windows and Linux are great in their own ways. PCs are the peak of engineering, both desktops and laptops because of how versatile, powerful and universal they are. They serve engineers, designers and end users. You can do anything you can imagine; because the great people who built it, did it in such way that they themselves could use and enjoy it.
📱 The tech of the future will become ever more limited. The next generation of humans will use Chrome OS gladly and not even feel limited because they never experienced the freedom provided by a true personal computer device. Android OS is already getting ever closer to restricting 3rd party APK installers. Big tech will do everything they can to limit freedoms and make everyone use cloud, where they can charge $ for every damn click.
☎️The consumer-facing tech will become increasingly dumbed-down over time. The programmers and engineers will be still able to use "true" tech, but only for work. In everyday life, they will have to be content with the dumb limited tech.
And there is nothing we can do to stop it.9 -
DataDevNerd (ofc down to hardware bits)
Briefly blending amoung holiday tech consumers at Micro Center waiting for key-holder assistance @SSDs.
Rando: "they finally have a sale on *X, rebranded, price++* for my *ref'd only by part names* setup! What are you getting?"
Me: "replacement SSD, laptop's finally failing"
Rando: "Yeah, I totally get you, I hate that. How old is it? Hopefully you got a couple years outta it?"
Me: "over 7yrs old."
Rando: "Wow! Mustve not used it too much, still that's pretty long."
Me: "Actually, it's been my primary device, heavily used, as I'm a dev. I just know what/when to use SSD vs the HDD."
Rando: "Duuude, that's awesome!...wait...why haven't you just bought a new laptop yet?"
Me: "I'm not for hardware abuse or burning money"
I was quickly reminded why I tend to avoid typical consumer tech stores.2 -
According to the report of Reuters : Brazil's Ministry of Justice said on Monday it has fined U.S. tech giant Facebook 6.6 million reais ($1.6 million) for improperly sharing user data. The ministry's department of consumer protection said it had found that data from 443,000 Facebook users was made improperly available to developers of an App called 'thisisyourdigitallife.' The data was being shared for "questionable" purposes, the ministry said in a statement.7
-
I want to buy this human a beer.
https://aleksandra.codes/tech-conte...
"Most tech content is bullshit"
N-gate summary:
"A webshit determines and announces the core truth of webshit. Hackernews bemoans the displacement of the technical book by the shitposting factory, but fails to reinvent the industry journal as a replacement. Other Hackernews debate whether the problem might actually be those snotty kids who don't know anything. The Hackernewsest post comes as someone declares critical thought as Considered Harmful, and recommends instead pestering random experts to train you for free. The rest of the comments are mad at Google for returning shitty search results, making it too difficult to just be told what to do."8 -
Why the hell laptops do not have wireless charging at this point? Would rant about phones, but I’ve heard that Apple will release iPhone 13 with wireless only, so that’s great42
-
So I'm having this return to the 70s mood. Not for the 70s themselves but for the pack of tech in everyday life.
Like besides email or worldwide message exchange and wikipedia, what have been the last true innovations?
Media streaming just killed and monopolized other industries. Sure, everything is cheaper, but let's be honest, how much music do we consume? Pretty sure like 80% of people listen to the same 100 songs in their whole lifetime. Do we need limitless streaming? Did it help us somehow beyond giving some dopamine shots?
Social media are and have always been crap for posers, advertising and bots. Small communities make sense, when properly taken care of. The actual issue with social media is the replacement of the so called "Third place". The place you go after work that is not your home. We don't know each other anymore, loneliness is apparently becoming pandemic and people are struggling with this. How is this innovative? For the real time news that are making people freak out?
And then, as I ranted before, AI. It's just... Statistics. Well applied statistics. Is it an actual innovation? No. Serves nothing beyond taking someone's job.
And before some retarded dickhead starts no, it will never create the same amount of jobs as a factory would've done 100 years ago, and prompt engineering is a lie told by the very guys who SELL those products to convince you that their crap is harmless.
Maybe it's about time to hit the brakes for a second and think if the simpler things (NOT the times!) were better, if maybe if we're getting lonely is actually our fault, it's our fault for not calling that old friend for a drink, it's our fault if we keep getting some dopamine shot every minute and are barely able to look people in the eyes, it's our fault for not behaving like human beings?
I hope any engineer will understand how this rant is about consumer-oriented tech and not tech in general.10