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A comment on Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional. Parent comment

Re:Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be re... by buran77 on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @04:26AM (#25744329)
This comment along with your previous one give the impression that in effect any solution that is favorable for the user is not only going to "cost too much to do just for the customers" but is also bound to be less reliable. It's how every privacy invasion or abuse of position of the past decade+ has been justified: "we made the product cheaper and better for you, any change will cost a lot and break it".

Because yes, this can be used to justify close to anything that is in the interest of the company even if it's to the customer's disadvantage. Those features usually bring money to a company so removing them would be a loss. On top of that you can always attach that generic claim that any change will cause the system to implode and will also make your cat feral.

Well, some of that may be true but it doesn't mean we should use it as a justification to keep doing things like that. Products can be built with the consumer's best interest in mind at little additional cost if any. The problem is the consumer's best interest usually brings in less money.

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Re:Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be re... by dvfjsdhgfv on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @06:21AM (#25745379)
Sometimes it gets absurd. You can hardly buy any modern laptop with a hardware camera switch. It's as if laptop manufacturers were completely blind what number of people uses a hardware solution in order to render their laptop cameras unusable when they want it. The same group of people would love to be able to do the same with their built-in mics (not just in laptops, but also phones). We're not talking about clueless folks but all kinds of people, including tech-aware ones like Zuckerberg. Nevertheless, mobile device manufacturers remain deaf and pretend the problem doesn't exist. And Librem is the exception that proves the rule.
[ Parent | on HN ]