It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being consigned to landfill is bonkers.

>It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being consigned to landfill is bonkers.

That's not a high bar to clear. Who's realistically going to use a laptop/desktop with a Core 2 Duo (2006), for instance?

With lightweight , efficient , non bloated software it is entirely possible ? Start with a efficient OS

Thinpkad owners/modders, probably.

You're going to think my answer is bizarre, but those kind of underpowered devices would be ideal for office work or non-IT businesses in general. They need computers to do the same things as they needed 15 or 20 years ago. Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory, sending and receiving e-mail.

No, your idea is perfectly rational. Somebody I know consulted me on what kind of computers to buy for their new small business that would only be used for browsing, email, word processing. I found them a store that sold used Dell and HP workstations. They got 3 Dell machines (CPU + Monitor + Keyboard + Mouse), all Intel Core i5 with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD with Windows 7 Pro, for $75 / each. We spent an additional $25 to purchase a cheap 128 GB SSD and installed Linux (LMDE), Firefox, LibreOffice and GNU Cash on it. (Preserved Windows Dual boot option, just in case they needed Windows for something). This was 2+ years ago and the owner was so happy that I reduced his IT hardware budget by a quarter. I recently purchased a used HP 25" monitor from Craigslist, for $60, in excellent condition and still having a year warranty on it, whose retail price was around $500 on launch. There is so much e-waste being produced ...

It's the same as with cars - companies want brand new because then you get a full warranty and theoretically you don't need to worry about it. So that $400 you saved would be spent in IT support for your old failing hardware.

But the thing is.....old PCs are really not that unreliable. If they survived the last 5-10 years then they are probably still chugging along just fine and for a small business there is literally nothing wrong with using them.

Well except the software.

What about the software?

OP said they got a bunch of computers, wiped them and installed Linux and LibreOffice on them - in which case the software is not a problem.

> Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory, sending and receiving e-mail.

Well... Outlook is already a web app, the rest of the Office suite will follow rather sooner than later, and inventory - it's either web apps or SAP, both memory hogs.

But not all businesses need to use the latest versions of Microsoft Office. They might not even need to use Microsoft Office at all. iPads come with a stock e-mail application, as well as word processing and spreadsheets etc. And if you're using old PCs, you can use old versions of Office. Or WordPad and an e-mail client. They are light-weight.

You are thinking of big businesses, where as I was talking about Micro and Small businesses (in India). They don't even use Outlook today. For them email means Gmail, and even its use is declining as most business communication in India is done over WhatsApp!

I still use a C2D laptop running Linux for some things.

I was ripping CDs with a Core 2 Duo Macbook a couple weeks ago lol (running Linux)

>>Who's realistically going to use a laptop/desktop with a Core 2 Duo (2006), for instance?

I was literally still using a Core2Duo Macbook Pro as a kitchen laptop just for looking up recipes and watching youtube videos etc until last year. Worked absolutely fine until Chrome decided that it's not going to update itself anymore and since I'm on an old version of chrome I can't use google sync. That's what killed it for me - the hardware itself was still perfectly functional.

This comment gave me whiplash

I am typing this from my 2009 Win7 PC I use for older Windows games...

Huh?

The PC ecosystem is the exception to the rule. 20 year lifetimes are typical, but in the smartphone world 10 years is treated as an impossibility. It is all disposable by design

I'm not sure about today's conventions, but it used to be that every component inside a car had a minimum standard of 10-year-life. The Toyota Landcruiser famously had a minimum 25-year-life for each and every single component. I have worked closely with some older Toyota engineers in Japan. It is possible but not conventional.

I am running the latest LineageOS on my OnePlus 5, which is eight years old. I intend to be using it for some time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePlus_5

HN is biased towards the sort of people who keep computers from 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out of their 12 year old iPad Air. That's great, but it's simply not a thing for most people so i don't see how it significantly reduce ewaste.

If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years, which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of e-waste. Software getting more demanding is also a function of hardware churn.

It’s sad that hardware outlasts software. You’d expect the opposite.

> If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years, which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of e-waste.

Unfortunately, battery technology doesn't - and even if we had long lasting batteries, we'd also need fall-resistant screens. And no matter what, even if you have a device held together by screws and allowing easy repair instead of messing around with glue and click-tabs... screens still are really expensive, making it often enough more worthwhile to take the opportunity and upgrade the whole device rather than to repair the screen.

Batteries are easily replacable. LCD can last a long time, my main desktop monitor is 18 years old at this point. OLED less so, admittedly.

How did it vote in this election?

> Batteries are easily replacable.

Not in most phones. You always have to mess with glue and unless you take extreme care and caution to remove _all_ pieces of it you will end up with compromised water-tightness, not to mention risking the screen cracking or being exposed to air (ruining OLEDs).

> my main desktop monitor

We were talking about phones. Phones get dropped, scratched by keys, ... the list why phone LCDs/OLEDs can get broken is loooong.

The average salary in the USA is still $66k. You're living in a bubble to think people don't want to get more time out of their family's iOS devices.

>You're living in a bubble to think people don't want to get more time out of their family's iOS devices.

No, at least for Apple devices, the overwhelming majority are replaced before they reach EOL. According to https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/, only around 25% of people are using iPhones that were released more than 3 years ago.

So only ~35 million people?

Maybe more people aren't running older hardware because it's too difficult, rather than because they don't want to. The basic idea is here is taht if a device can still hold a charge and the user is OK with limited features, they should be able to keep using it as long as they feel like it.

>So only ~35 million people?

Citing large absolute numbers for rhetorical effect is dishonest because multiplying a huge number with any percentage will result in a shockingly large number. The original claim is that "people who keep computers from 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out of their 12 year old iPad Air [...] it's simply not a thing for most people", which is true even, if there are millions in absolute terms.

The iOS ecosystem graduated to status symbol for many, $66k average salary doesn’t really matter when society will just take whatever carrier trade in deal they can use to status up.

Yeah, many people don't see "this phone costs $1099" but "I need to pay $60 a month".

Which is not how I spend my money -- I have always purchased unlocked phones when they are on sale -- but there are too few of us.

You clearly haven't met a lot of your average PC or phone user then. Most people don't care about getting the newest and best thing. If a thing still works, they'll use it until it doesn't anymore, however long that is. You have no idea the kinds of PCs I saw people using when I worked as a technician. People just don't have an interest in getting new tech unless they're forced to, because they largely aren't interested in tech. They're interested in document processing, watching videos, listening to music and dealing with their pictures. And they don't care how old the device is they're doing it on.

In addition, they don't want to spend money on it. They'd rather spend money on things they actually care about. Festivals, clubs, vacations, a new TV, a car, restaurants, whatever. Your average non-tech person is happy if they don't have to spend anything on gadgets for 10 years.

My mum was still happily on some 8 year old iphone, I'm not even sure which one that was, and then got really annoyed that she had to upgrade just because her banking apps stopped updating and wouldn't log in anymore. It's just pure and complete e-waste.

RE "....I am typing this from my 2009 Win7 PC...."

Ssssshhhh ..... Microsoft does not want people to hear this .....

Ahh the good ole days.

> Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.

Used by a tiny percentage only because Apple has made it as difficult as possible to not upgrade, which is especially egregious precisely because their devices are long-lasting.

(This comment brought to you via a perfectly functioning iPhone 8 running the latest possible iOS that supports it.)

They did the same for the iPad Pro. My kid is using the hand-me-down of my mother (so from grandmother to granddaughter). I put a case on it to protect against bumps, protect screen (has a couple of burn-in marks but it is still very usable) and put tape on top of the camera (the mics likely still work). I also put it on my IoT VLAN. She uses it for YouTube Kids and Disney+, mainly, but schooldays it is limited to 15 min a day and weekend days (fri and sat) to 1 hr. After that, she needs to ask for more time. Usually we don't give that, although in vacations we are lenient. The device still works very well, although the battery (still same as in 2017 or so when it was bought new) is a lil' bit hammered. Now here's the thing: is this device not overkill for the tasks I mentioned? I think so, yes. A kid her age (almost 8) would be happy with whatever, it could be 480p and they're cool with it, as long as the software is still secure (and don't give me the BS of 'don't give them a tablet'; it is locked down and my first shared PC was in like 1989 when I was about her age). And sadly, Apple doesn't want to provide software updates for this device anymore. Microsoft not either, btw, as they deprecated Windows 10 and Windows 11 requires TPMv2 (though Windows is more about PCs and laptops, I'm not sure if there's any effect on Surface hardware). I believe companies can do better, but if they don't want to, they should unlock the bootloader and give the user free reign on the device. You quit support, you unlock the hardware, or else you're violating the local law. That'd be my preference.

Id vote for that law.

Absolutely, me as well. I think the key here is that Apple is selling a platform that is used for a multitude of purposes, often including running software from third party developers. If you’re selling a platform device in large numbers you should have the choice codified by law of either continuing software support to some degree or releasing an unlock kit for it. You should not have the option of effectively abandoning and bricking it, if that’s the route you must go the buyer should get the option of a full purchase price refund at that point in time.

Because your made up stat is false because you lump a real problem (died of old age) with a fake one (completely obsolete)