Phones are maybe an odd example, but it's somewhat true: Traditional phone systems let you make local calls even if long-distance lines fail, or within a building without leaking data externally. Very few people would ever need (or expect) newer voice/video chat systems to be usable in this way, and they largely aren't.
POTS is amazing, and its sad to see it going away :(
And personally, as someone who grew up in the 80's, let me offer up a counter-anecdote: I don't ever recall hearing a "fast-busy tone". There was never a time we couldn't use our land line (at least until we had a modem, that is).
1) In the event of a major disaster, you've probably evacuated. You can't take your landline with you.
2) Telephone poles burn.
3) Even if the cellular system is completely hosed, you might still be able to get on a data network. All you need is crappy wifi anywhere (cafe, hotel, friend) and you can get an email out.
1) Not all disasters can be evacuated away from. Tornadoes, for example.
2) So do power poles. And those telephone poles are also probably carrying data.
3) You can't dial 911 via email.
Cell network congestion is a well known phenomenon when disasters strike. It's been seen multiple times in the past. Yes, landlines can and do fail as well, but they're more resilient than cellphone networks.
Perhaps this will flip in the future, but it hasn't, not yet.
2) Yes, power goes out too. Cellphones have batteries.
3) Yes, you can dial 911 via "wifi calling". I've done it.
I don't know about "hate" but I do think landlines are overrated. You already have a cellphone. Paying for an extra service and apparatus for the tiny possibility that you need to call 911 when your cellphone can't - why? Who else are you going to call? Do you even know their phone numbers without your cellphone?
I also think you're undervaluing cellphones by assuming they only talk on the cellular network. You just need to get on a data network somewhere and you suddenly have a wide variety of communication options, including phone calls. TCP/IP was designed to withstand nuclear war.
I got fast busy tones several times a year back in the 80's, and it usually corresponded to whenever a concert was announced. Maybe my phone company back then was as bad as your mobile services company is now?
You generally have some charge on your phone, though, and lots of folks have power banks now - or cars they can charge their phones with.
Don't forget all the times when disaster strikes and the cell phones are a real help: Car accidents, for example. At one time, you were reliant on you - or someone else - stopping by a house and hoping they'd be home. And I'm sure there are lots of other examples of this as well. Now that laws changed, cell phones can pretty much always call 911 as well, even without service at all: This was not the case with phone lines. If the house didn't have service, you couldn't get help.
Crucially, however, there is no profit in getting to the point of being properly provisioned for emergencies, and no regulation pushing for it. Land lines, in contrast, are regulated to push for availability during emergencies.
I think most people don't realize why phone calls suck these days; it just feels awkward and cumbersome, but it doesn't have to be that way.
There’s a lot that still sucks, but I don’t miss landlines the slightest bit. Scheduled do not disturb is a godsend next to trying to remember to turn the ringer on the landline in the hallway off at night.
even that is changing according to youtubers like Kilmer. IIRC he has lambasted his favorite car maker Toyota for having a lower quality today than years past.
Something you're overlooking with your concept of "reliability" is that cars produced before 1980 can be fixed using pretty basic tool. It's conceivable that a car from that era could continue to work well into the 2100s. Because most of what can break on can be remanufactured by a reasonably-skilled machinist.
Yeah, cars need to be fixed much less often, and they are substantially less fickle vis-a-vis temperature and operating conditions. But the moment the software to repair newer cars is gone, so too goes our ability to easily fix them.
This isn't some far-flung dystopian idea either. It's totally possible that the hardware & software used to repair today's cars is difficult or impossible to come by in 30 years. Some of this stuff is five- and six-figure investments. Maybe stuff for GM or Honda vehicles will be accessible, but what about smaller companies like Mazda or Subaru?
Mid-70s and earlier cars tend to be simpler, but they would never pass modern emissions tests. We picked clean air and fuel efficiency over simplicity. I don't think this was wrong.
It's really hard to know what to think about the direction cars are heading. Yeah, there's a lot of closed software and electronics. On the other hand, I have at least one friend with a hacked Tesla. And the huge emissions regulatory and inspection regime that prevents you from making changes to engines doesn't apply to electric cars. So it's a mixed bag.
In practice, that means that most states which have any emissions inspections now just connect to the OBD2 port, check for ready and no faults, and pass the car, with cars that predate OBD2 being either visually inspected for obvious defects or not inspected at all for emissions.
Having a machine that can operate for 200+ years with refurbishment is type of reliability.
There are pros and cons to each. The former is good so long as your country continues to grow, remains wealthy & educated, and retains the ability to constantly produce better replacements. Not every country has that luxury.
The VW Type 2 (what Americans call the "VW Bus") remained in production for the Brazilian market until 2013. That's a poor country and cars are expensive, so the ability to have a vehicle last a lifetime is very important. The Type 2 is something that can be repaired by almost any machine shop with basic fabrication tools.
You'll see this a lot in developing countries. Where "new" automobiles would be recognized as a 1980s or 1990s model by those living in developed countries. Manufactures keep them going because the tooling is cheap and easy to keep going.
Those 80/90s cars are dead reliable too.
Once the spare parts for an American 2020 Honda Civic are exhausted, it's unlikely that new parts can be fabricated. That's fine, so long as there's a 2050 Honda Civic or similar to available replace it, and that such a vehicle can still be afforded.
> I would never have maintained a thousand-dollar toolbox to fix and maintain my car
You might be surprised by how much work you can do on a 90s-era Japanese car with a 14mm wrench and a screwdriver.
You're missing the point, and misinterpreting that statement to mean something far broader than it actually says. The article is about unnecessary internet dependency, not about the mechanical reliability of cars, and it's a derail to make it about that.
Also, you're interpreting "a time back when the Internet didn't exist" as the 80s. For most people, the internet didn't exist as late as 1995, and I've driven some pretty reliable cars from that era.
But yes, to my knowledge, most (all?) operate fine without a cell signal.
Not heard a single story of an internet connected car not having basic functionality work without internet.
Something, something, "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. ... Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
I have a Nest thermostat. It works fine without the network. I have a modern car. It works fine without the internet. Several of my friends have Teslas. They work fine offgrid.
It's just nonsense. Stop defending it.
And don't Nest thermostats occasionally have an issue where they default back to somewhere in the 60° range due to a server connectivity issue?
https://support.google.com/googlenest/thread/20510237?hl=en
Doesn't seem like nonsense.
Other fun internet connected car reads:
https://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/wo...
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306338-phone-app-rental-...
Even if there have been a few historical software bugs that caused some Nests to change temperature, it did not "become completely unresponsive in the middle of winter". Worst case is you walk up to the device and turn the temperature back up. Also, there's nothing in that bug report that suggests it has anything to do with internet connectivity.
A quick google search shows plenty of people getting locked in non-internet-connected cars.
The modern world is complex. Even before I replaced my thermostat with a Nest, my furnace was already way more fragile than my fireplace.
I believe this is what the author tried to explain.
Internet and technological advancement is not evil per se, too much power in a very tiny group is going to be problematic.
The NEXT Google Outage will involve 32 million cars refusing to run because they can't log in to your Google Account.
OTOH, software update is being widely abused nowadays, there's no pressure to get it right off the bat. As long as the update framework is robust, everything else can be weak since you can send another patch whenever you want.
Today's games are more buggy, in part because they're much more complex, and in part because software update allows to ship them unfinished.
I loved the "fixes" to Plants vs Zombies when EA bought popcap.
It's also why classic music, books, movies, etc are great - decades of pruning leaving a short list of best-ofs.
Back in 90's in order to survive game producers had to have sense of quality and knowledge of definition of "finished".
Still, Nintendo does a pretty good job of avoiding most critical bugs before release even on the Switch.
Big ticket home items like fridges, washer/dryers, TVs. They're all planned to shit the bed just after their warranty wears out so that companies can squeeze out extra money from them. Nothing is made with pride anymore. There's many facets as to why this is, but as a civilization I don't think we're ever going to be able to go back to the way "the way things were"
It's not that we don't need the internet, it's arbitrarily requiring the internet for apps when they worked without it before.
I grew up in the 80s and have owned several cars from that era. They were significantly less reliable than cars of today. Carburetors were still present (though being phased out) and there were always vacuum hoses that, when they leaked, caused your car to run like crap.
Also, phones: Cellphones were extremely expensive and unreliable. Landlines were extremely unreliable at reaching other humans because as often as not, the recipient wasn't home. Also, I remember all kinds of problems with landline wiring leading to noisy connections. Also, unless you were calling a close neighbor, you paid high per-minute charges.
It's really hard to find something that was better in the pre-internet era. Cars and phones aren't it.