Has technology gotten less reliable?

[u/Yellow-Mike]

I'll start this with some examples.

I bought a Windows 11 Dell Inspiron that originally shipped with Windows 10, all reviews said I can expect solid battery life, I even checked with the seller to get me the battery diagnostics from cmd, to make sure it hasn't regraded much, I reran them myself on purchase – all was well. And yet, I usually got 2 to 3 hours of battery life from it, barely half of what was to be reasonably expected. I tried diagnosing it and doing all the steps, but still, barely 3 hours.

I bought a Fire TV Stick from Amazon, tested it with my grandma's TV and it worked fine, shipped it home and even though all is factory reset, the remote doesn't pair. To be more precise, the remote does pair, I can pair it as a HID device to any BT device, and I can read the raw data off unpaired connected Fire TV stick via BLE, but they just don't pair. I've done all the tricks, different everything, doesn't work.

My uncle has a Fire TV Stick too and his remote works except it doesn't turn the TV on, CEC is odd technology, okay, but funnily enough the only way to turn it on then is via Alexa? Which means CEC is okay? But with a catch, it only works half the time, the other half Alexa just lights down and doesn't do anything.

Not to mention Spotify constantly glitching when streaming to speakers, Google Photos randomly rejecting some video filetypes when uploaded from some device, my Mi Band randomly rebooting in the middle of the night, and much more.

I miss the times when I could just turn on my TV and it would play something, I miss the times when I would open up my MP3 player and it would reliably play music in my wired headphones. Now I feel like we have all the features but none of the reliability. Every TV is 'smart' but I use it much less than the dumb ones I used to have. What a world.

I know programming is hard, and when I was so frustrated with the state of so many health tracker apps, all cloud connected and randomly failing, I just wrote my own...and I was honestly shocked when it just. plain. worked. no strings attached.

Is this just me?

[u/TimelyDrummer4975]

Tech have become more stressful i feel. And its feel harder to enjoy it

[u/Leading_Bumblebee144]

2-3 hours from a non-Snapdragon or Lunar Lake CPU is pretty good. You never get close to the rated mode on old hardware.

[u/Yellow-Mike → u/Leading_Bumblebee144]

Ah, mate. You know, for all its faults, look at ChromeOS, those boys figured something out, even Intel Chromebooks from 2016 still get me 5 hours. I know this is the state we're in with Windows, not less frustrating though...

[u/Leading_Bumblebee144 → u/Yellow-Mike]

If I could do all I need on a Chromebook I’d look 🙃

[u/SteampunkBorg → u/Leading_Bumblebee144]

I used to get 4 or 5 without effort, up to 8,sometimes even more, from my Surface Pro 4. Three hours is bad for something supposedly portable

[u/dancingjake]

Ha! You kids never had to live through random crashes in Windows 3.1 that were just an accepted part of life. Save early, save often, was the mantra.

[u/No-swimming-pool]

Technology has gotten more complicated and thus, more expensive.

A lot of times people claim stuff was designed to break, while in fact it was designed to be as cheap as possible while still reaching warranty.

A 5 cent difference is quite a bit if you make many millions of an item.

[u/SetNo8186]

More proprietary coding to cause others to fail to connect without the pricey patch to make them work. They are forcing other companies to subscribe to get functionality.

It's like nobody wants to use an open source system that actually does handle 85% of America's business in the background . . . that would be too uncontrolled and free . . .

[u/dkopgerpgdolfg]

"Enshittification".

and I was honestly shocked when it just. plain. worked. no strings attached.

Your "mistakes":

You cared about having a working product with good UX. Not about getting customers to buy more and more after it broke, not about marketing and ads, not about analyzing and selling data as much as possible, not about adding remote-control malware.

You also had some technical skills. The software wasn't made by someone that needs to be told to use loops, instead of copy-pasting the same code 50 times (yes, there are plenty such programmers that are employed).

You focused on getting the thing done, not on wasting time with pseudo-agile cargo cult rituals, not with 30h total meetings for 8 persons to decide how to split up a ticket that takes 4h to implement, ...

So, as you can see, "you're holding it wrong", and if you ever try to improve things then HR will ghost you because you dared to ask for a salary.

...

[u/MrBaseball77 → u/dkopgerpgdolfg]

about getting customers to buy more and more after it broke

Auto manufacturers coined the term "Planned obsolescence" to explain why vehicles deteriorate after just a few years.

It's the same with literally everything manufactured today. Corporate greed has taken over humanity.

[u/Assist_Federal → u/MrBaseball77]

Unsure environment costs is included in pricing of any productivity or entertainment related technology. Maybe they would be too expensive for today’s working class

[u/jmnugent → u/MrBaseball77]

People overhype the word "planned obsolescence"

Planned Obsolescence means = it was INTENTIONALLY designed to fail in a certain way or after a certain time passed. So if you as a Dryer manufacturer include a chip inside that is programmed to burn out a circuit after 200 dry cycles,. that's planned obsolescence.

Planned Obsolescence is NOT:.... "Our customers will only buy a Dryer at X-pricepoint,. so to meet that price point we have to design certain internal components out of plastic,. and by doing so, that shortens the lifespan. THat's not "planned obsolescence",. that's just "low end cheap crap".

[u/MrBaseball77 → u/jmnugent]

It's still corporate greed anyway you spin it.

Doing what they can to increase the dividends for the share holders.

[u/AvonMustang]

Dell laptop, Amazon Fire Stick...

This is commodity grade tech at best. There are quality laptops out there - Apples are really good and the business HPs as well. They make cheap ones also but a Roku Ultra is a solid streaming choice.

[u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 → u/AvonMustang]

Yeah every product mentioned is pretty much the cheapest version of the technology available. The laptop could just have a worn out battery which happens with everything or they could just have the wrong power settings enabled for maximum battery life.

Yeah fire sticks suck but they're a whole computer for $25 so there are going to be trade offs. Drop $150 for an Apple TV and it's rock solid.

Mi Band is like a $70 smartwatch. Drop $350 on an Apple Watch and it's rock solid.

My AirPod pros connect to my phone faster than I could plug in a cable.

I'd guess the Spotify issues are because they're streaming to the cheapest speakers they could find. 

My comment ended up sounding like an Apple ad but the products I mentioned are just the ones I've ended up on after trying cheaper alternatives that are junk like OP. 

Not all of the more expensive things have been Apple products though. I also bit the bullet and went with Hue lights throughout my house because every other brand I tried was unreliable at best and the one time expense was worth it over having constant headaches over something as simple as lighting.

OP's last line makes me wonder if this is all just an ad hoping someone will ask what the health tracker they built is.

[u/Maleficent-Clock8109]

Dell.. Amazon.. you are buying the low end over hyped tech and then having issues with it. Sound about right.

[u/No-Let-6057]

I think you picked some of the worst HW, and then made it worse.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Inspiron-11-Series.121956.0.html

Not sure what specs you got, but fundamentally you picked an underperforming device. You also got it used, possibly even up to 9 years old if it came with Windows 10!

1) Batteries have natural aging, meaning that the full capacity diminishes even if its performance is still good. Something that could hold a charge for 5 hours brand new might only hold a charge for 4 hours 2 years later, and 3.5 hours when five years old:
https://www.ufinebattery.com/blog/what-happens-if-lithium-batteries-are-not-used-for-a-long-time/

• General Lifespan:
  • 2–3 years (even unused) before noticeable capacity loss.
  • After 5–10 years, many lithium batteries become unreliable.

2) You upgraded to Windows 11, which increased the overall utilization of the device:

https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-vs-11-battery-life/

Windows 11 uses more RAM and CPU resources for background services like Widgets, Teams integration, and a richer desktop experience. This additional usage impacts idle power consumption

…

Windows 11 enables Modern Standby by default on many devices. This feature allows background activity during sleep, leading to overnight battery drain if not properly configured. On older or unsupported laptops, this can cause a noticeable drop in standby time compared to Windows 10.

3) The average Dell Inspiron 11 CPU is either an underpowered Atom based CPU or ultramobile Core CPU, or an underpowered AMD CPU. Compared to a more modern purpose built mobile CPU you will get 3x to 4x the performance, or 3x the battery life (but not both simultaneously)

https://www.notebookcheck.net/A9-9410-vs-M1_8181_12937.247596.0.html

The same with your Fire Stick ; I own both a Fire TV and an Apple TV. The performance of the Fire TV went downhill as Amazon kept pushing more features to an underpowered CPU. I turned off the Fire TV Internet features to speed up my actual TV and just used the Apple TV for streaming. Amazon is selling ads and services, Apple sells HW and services. The difference being they make a profit on the HW and don’t need to use ads to turn the HW profitable

[u/ted_anderson]

This is also a problem in the automotive industry. A lot of the late model pickup trucks have an electronic gear shift. The solenoids that do the actual shifting work fine. The handle works OK. But the software that's controlling it develops glitches from time to time. And it's not uncommon for the vehicle to tell you to stop driving so that it can do a software update.. which I'd hate for that to happen if you were on your way to something important and you had to be there on time.

An "epidemic" that we seem to be having in the tech world is that everything is starting to become over-engineered. I'm not sure if it's from the software developers trying to show off, trying to remain relevant, or if they're just creating job security for themselves. If nobody is asking the question of, "Just because I can, does it mean I should?" then we're going to keep overcomplicating simple functions.

I just wrote my own [code] ...and I was honestly shocked when it just. plain. worked. no strings attached.

Exactly. I work with a particular well known product in the AV industry and a lot of people don't like it because every experience has been a bad one. And when I "fix" it I take out a lot of the extra bells and whistles that's making the operation much harder than it has to be.

My collogues criticize the way that I code saying that I'm not using the full potential of the equipment's capabilities. Maybe not.. but I always deliver a rock solid system that works every single time. You're delivering something that the end user has to constantly reboot or go through technical gymnastics in order to make it work.

[u/jmnugent]

As someone who has worked in IT since the mid 90's,.. I have mixed feelings about this.

• for starters,. I don't think many people (especially anyone under 20).. really understands what an absolute explosion of technology we've had since the mid 90's. Laptops and mobile-devices and smartphones etc.. barely existed in the 90's. The idea that you could take a computer "mobile" was basically unheard of. (anyone remembers trying to create "Hardware Profiles" for Docking and Undocking in Windows NT4.0... shout out to your Therapist). The idea that you could "go anywhere", "at any time" with a smartphone in your pocket and have connectivity to literally anything (and do things like FaceTime calls or etc at the drop of a hat)... was a fantastical future imaginary thing in the 90's.

• that "explosion of technology" and manufacturing and etc.. has caused a huge ramp up in mass production of devices. In that mass production,.. there's inevitably going to be some defects and corners cut.

• the (more modern) corporate strategy of "profits at any cost" and ruthless cutting of corners and somewhat greedy or anti-consumer attitudes of "won't matter what the quality is, they'll keep buying it"... has caused some degradation of people actually committing themselves to quality.

Reliable quality is generally reserved for:

• higher end hardware (Apple Macbook in general is going to give you a more reliable experience than a low end DELL Inspiron)

• or small niche bespoke hand crafted solutions. (not driven by any corporate investment board, etc)

A few coworkers and I were having this conversation a couple days ago about DELL specifically and how much they dominate the business ecosystems in the USA,. there's really no good alternative. If you're a corporate customer wanting to buy 1000's or 10's 1000's of end-user computers,.. I'm not sure what your other options are. That complacency (on DELL's part) shows through sometimes that they dont' really have to commit much effort to quality or good reliable customer service because hey,. who else are you going to go to ?

That all said,.. I feel a little guilty agreeing with other comments here, but I do think they are correct. Pointing out "low quality" using examples of an Inspiron or Amazon Fire Stick.. is a bit to on the nose. Go buy a MacBook or an AppleTV and you probably have a lot better (and more reliable) experience.

Technology in many cases is a "you get what you pay for" type of situation.

[u/soundman32]

"Just plain worked" - now get it running on 50 different makes of PC/Phone with 500 different screen sizes. "It worked in my machine" is a joke in development circles.

[u/Yellow-Mike → u/soundman32]

I understand your point. It was a native Android app built on default libraries and Google's ones are especially robust, so it runs well on any Android 12+ device, but obviously, porting it to iOS for example would be near impossible on the native platform.

[u/Logical_Angle2935]

DVD is so much better than VHS - when it works. Get a scratch on a DVD then forget about it. Meanwhile VHS will play, though with poor quality, forever.

Streaming so much better than DVD, right? Well, except buffering. (It also takes forever to rewind the show when you are done. lol)

I think the general concept is entropy. Technological improvements often lead to improved outcomes in ideal scenarios. But they do this with added complexity which means more points of failure.

Compare the ICE engine compartment of a vehicle from the '70's or '80's to one these days. Then compare with an EV and if it weren't for the added complexity of reliance on software we might find a technology improvement that is more reliable overall.

[u/Shadowwynd]

Battery life is advertised from testing systems at zero load, screen dimmed as much as possible/off, with as many background services turned off as possible. “9 hour battery life” on the box = 2 hours actual.

It is like testing a humvees’s gas mileage by measuring gas consumption while coasting down a hill.

Apple is the only company I see whose systems routinely approach the advertised battery life.

[u/Yellow-Mike → u/Shadowwynd]

Understood, but that makes them pretty close to useless. There's no accountability and keep in mind I looked at review-verified values and even then, once on Windows 11, it was much worse than what any reviewer provided me with.

[u/vandathan]

Install linux - debian 13 kde

[u/Yellow-Mike → u/vandathan]

I prefer Gnome, Linux is great, it's not super easy to use either but at least it tells you what the problem is and lets you fix it.

[u/Farpoint_Relay]

Products have gotten more crappy because now they want everything to be not only a subscription model instead of you "owning" it, but they want to overload you with targeted advertising to boot. They also have planned obsolescence because they want you to upgrade constantly thus boosting their sales.

There's so many products doing the exact same thing from so many companies... Most people just buy the absolutest cheapest, then wonder why it's a total piece of garbage. Truth be told, it's entirely possible ALL of them are garbage. It's frustrating that you can't just go and buy something but have to do a ton of research because it feels like so many products released these days are extremely buggy and you just better hope and pray the company comes out with updates to fix the issues (and not cause new ones).