I’ll start: printers.
I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn’t sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.
Luckily my library’s close by and I can print there remotely.
Company apps.
Every business you deal with has an app these days. Grocery stores, restaurants, etc… Just install and scan to get your discounts and track your points. Yeah… No thanks.
New anything. Analogue or bust, if it wants to talk to the internet and isn’t a game console or computer then it can absolutely go and fuck itself dead.
as far as I can tell. everything. its like any time there is a new purchase I have to scrounge around to see if there is a dumb option.
Acoustic guitars. Lately, they’ve been making these acoustic guitars with some sort of a box inside that gives it some reverb/delay, to make it sound a little richer. I hate it, it sounds shitty, and it makes the guitar unnaturally heavy.
It’s an acoustic guitar, a pinnacle of woodworking artistry. Technology being involved is morally offensive.
Jesus. I do a lot of woodworking. I tell people I can make a guitar-shaped object, but I can’t make a guitar. Musical instruments require a ton of specialized knowledge, precision, and care to make something that sounds right. Sounds to me what they’re doing with these boxes is to lower the quality so they’re actually building guitar-shaped objects, and then trying to compensate with some electronic bullshit.
I haven’t owned a home printer in a good 16 years. For the ultra rare thing I do print, work doesn’t have a problem with personal print jobs.
That covers everything even the checkout at Walmart.
If I see an ad playing at a gas station pump, I get back in my car and keep driving.
Microsoft products
Newer cars. They come with cameras pointed at my face!
Several years ago, I bought a color laser printer/scanner. It cost about twice what an inkjet one costs. It has now lasted twice as long as the average inkjet, and no sign of that changing. And it doesn’t have any of the subscription bullshit. Money well spent.
My old Brother color laser is still going strong!
Print out the diagnostic page, you might be shocked at the silly things it keeps track of, fuser unit, drum unit, etc, change at 10000 pages!
Take good care of it and it might outlive you.
One of the printers I was responsible for at a print shop was from the early 90s was working fine still in the 2020s when I left.
almost everything.
They are sneaking creepnology into all kinds of things it has no business being.
I’d go back to a Bakelite phone on a fucking land line if I could. As it stands I mostly try to buy older shit, cause not only is it typically better made, its just simple and basic with no extra pointless points of failure.
windows. and any software related (github) to windows.
I’m now 100% all linux all the time.
TVs. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I want to set up a Linux based streaming box and have my actual TV completely offline.
Cars, phones
Android phones. I mean, Google has been an advertising company the entire time (2008 to now) that Android has existed, but the enshittification has gotten worse and worse. I still like Android, though. I’m an Apple guy, but I haven’t forgotten wiping Android phones and flashing them with custom firmware, and getting the “AOSP-like” CyanogenMod, or the bone-stock “Google Play Edition” Android on an Android phone meant to slam 5 ads in your face every second. It was always a losing battle, but it was fun.
I still want a newer Android phone. I have a Galaxy S10. It’s still a good phone, but it should be the next phone I replace, before replacing my iPhone 16 Pro Max (which should last another 7-9 years).
As for printers, HP is always a losing bet. They suck. Their lasers aren’t bad at work, but they’re not great either. It’s always something with HP. I’ve heard Brother lasers are cheap enough and rock solid. I don’t really need a printer though. If I did, I’d get that one Brother laserjet everyone’s talking about. Just web search “that one brother printer” and look for the review that just says “stop worrying about printers and get that one brother printer.” Follow their link to Amazon to get the part number, and shop around.
Where are you seeing ads in Android? I have a pixel and I’ve never had ads shoved in my face. Well, not by Google. The producers or providers of apps, sure, but that’s not on Google is it?
They started adding ads all over that Google news feed when you swipe right from your homescreen last year, the one that’s built into the Pixel launcher.
Ohhh. I’ve never, ever used that except when I accidentally fatfinger my way to it. I forget it exists.
Dude I hope my 16 Pro Max lasts that long. I only got it after breaking my 13 Pro Max. I’d never cracked screen in my 15 years of smartphone ownership. That blue variant was gorgeous and it would have lasted another 3 years easily.
I’m sure you and I were on the same XDA forums back in the day. I still have my old LG G3 with Lineage OS on it. I’ll always miss that era of Android. Wacky new features all the time on ROM, only for Google to integrate them in the main OS down the line.
We’d have been on the same XDA forums if we had the same device. Otherwise we may not have met. I never owned an LG phone, though I was considering the LG G5. I also liked the one with the second screen, the grandfather of every “notched” phone (its second screen was “attached” to the main screen and to the right of the camera). V something? LG had some good ideas.
I had a Galaxy S3, and an HTC One M8. I do not recall what I went by on XDA. I use a new name every year or two. It’s entirely possible we crossed paths one way or another. I’ve been online a long time.
I cracked my 16PM screen the other day. Fortunately it was just the screen protector. I love how spoiled we are now. Wet wipe, dry wipe, dust sticker. Then this plastic applicator that holds the screen protector by these pins perfectly centred on the phone screen, and you pull this tab while pressing down and it applies perfectly every time. My old screen protector was up there almost 2 years, since I bought the 16PM in November '24. This is the second one, I have one more in the box.
I’ve cracked a few screen protectors but never screens.
Oh man I always wanted an HTC one M8, such a badass phone back in the day.
I was mainly on XDA for the HTC Incredible and then eventually the HTC Resound. It wasn’t until after I got a Pixel phone that I stopped flashing ROMs.
After seeing some comments on this thread about GraphineOS it has my interest piqued. It would be hard to leave Apple now that I am thoroughly entrenched in the ecosystem though. There really isn’t anything else like it. I remember I yearned for Google to get their ecosystem act together for years, but alas they kill more products than they keep.
