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   Bethany Black (bethanyblack@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 29-Dec-2023 22:13:02 JST Bethany Black

   Just seen someone talking about how their 1970’s HiFi equipment doesn’t need updates or bluetooth or the cloud to work, and 60 odd comments of the most boring people on this site engaging in “they don’t make them like they used to!” talk, no one pointing out that this is a combination of survivorship bias and them having the technical ability to replace components.

   “I doubt your modern stuff will work in 10 years!” He says, forgetting that most of the HiFis made in 1975 were broken by 1985.

   • Embed this notice
     .db (posthamster@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 29-Dec-2023 22:31:39 JST .db

     in reply to

     @BethanyBlack and on top of that (which is all true) I've just casually looked at the richer sounds website and you can easily buy a bundle of an amp, turntable and speakers with all the cables, with no online connectivity whatsoever. So they clearly still do make them like they used to.

   • Embed this notice
     Bethany Black (bethanyblack@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 30-Dec-2023 00:20:02 JST Bethany Black

     in reply to

     • Jan Beta

     @janbeta absolutely, and part of why they were built to have replaceable parts was because the parts were prone to breaking more easily. I’m big into right to repair, and also aware that most people are not in a position to repair things either due to time, skill or financial constraints.

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     Jan Beta (janbeta@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 30-Dec-2023 00:20:03 JST Jan Beta

     in reply to

     @BethanyBlack The real difference between all electronics built in the 70s and stuff made today is that the older devices were (mostly) built to be serviceable (and servicing is indeed needed from time to time). Recent stuff mostly just gets thrown out or "repaired" by replacing whole PCBs and such. I really hope the right to repair legislation is going to bring back repairable electronics in the future. There’s still hope, if not much.

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     gephorian (gephorian@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 30-Dec-2023 02:27:56 JST gephorian

     in reply to

     • Jan Beta

     @BethanyBlack @janbeta Part of having the right to repair is that it allows a repair economy to exist, which should help to bring prices for that repair into a range that everyday people can afford to repair a device instead of having to replace it. There used to be repair shops for TVs, radios, vacuum cleaners... now I even have HVAC guys telling me "it's toasted, replace the entire unit" when I only needed to replace two relays on the board. $15 vs $8k+...