So if a school buys 100 thinkpads, and 100 chromebooks, how long do you think they will last?
They will all become e-waste sooner or later, and most likely sooner in an education environment where they're being lent out to pupils.
> So if a school buys 100 thinkpads, and 100 chromebooks, how long do you think they will last?
As things currently stand, both will suffer hardware failures at alarming rates because children are terrifying and have very active lifestyles, but the thinkpads will only stop being useful when the hardware dies, while the Chromebooks will be artificially capped by their software, resulting in the thinkpads outliving them.
> I fail to see how pointing the finger at chromebooks specifically is more than a distraction.
Because Chromebooks force the machine to become e-waste regardless of how worn the hardware is. Everything may suck, but they suck more and on purpose.
They have a built-in kill switch. After pre-set number of years (from launch and not from purchase) they become useless to schools.
Macs and PCs only die when they die, not when they hit their cut-off date. At that point the other devices have resale values and 'expired' Chromebooks don't.
> There is a bigger problem at play here, a massive culture of consumption.
Then pointing the finger at Chromebooks is extremely relevant, as enforced lifetime limits lead to (relatively) rapidly replaced devices with no future beyond landfill and more consumption.